Scottish Doctor, author, speaker, sceptic

It’s official, statins do not have any side effects

Some of you will have noted that researchers have now decided that statins do not have any side effects at all. To be pedantic, the correct term is not side-effects, it is drug related adverse events. A side effect can be positive, or negative.

In order to prove that statins cause no adverse events, a paper was published in the Lancet entitled: ‘Adverse events associated with unblinded, but not with blinded, statin therapy in the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial—Lipid-Lowering Arm (ASCOT-LLA): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial and its non-randomised non-blind extension phase.’

A virtually impenetrable title which could mean almost anything. But the key message can be found here:

‘These analyses illustrate the so-called nocebo effect, with an excess rate of muscle-related AE reports only when patients and their doctors were aware that statin therapy was being used and not when its use was blinded. These results will help assure both physicians and patients that most AEs associated with statins are not causally related to use of the drug and should help counter the adverse effect on public health of exaggerated claims about statin-related side-effects.’

Funding: Pfizer, Servier Research Group, and Leo Laboratories

Statement by authors in original ASCOT study [The Lancet vol 361 April 5th 2003. Pp1149-1158] ‘The Anglo-Scandinavian Outcomes Trial (ASCOT) is an independent, investigator-initiated and investigator-led multicentre, randomised trial designed to compare two antihypertensive treatment strategies for the prevention of CHD events…’

Funding of the original ASCOT study: Pfizer, Servier Research Group and Leo Laboratories

The ASCOT study was published over fifteen years ago.

There was a lot of noise about this study on the radio, newspaper and television. At least there was in the UK. Professor Peter Sever, one of the authors, and a key investigator, stated on the radio, that the inserts warning of drug related adverse effects should be removed from the packaging, as they simply encourage patients to believe that they are suffering from adverse effects. He also stated that statins caused muscle problems in less than one in ten thousand patients.

I tend to disagree with him. I was asked to be interviewed on various radio stations, including BBC radio Scotland, and to write a newspaper article for the Scotsman newspaper. It went as follows:

The Great Statin Con

Yesterday, I was asked to appear on various programmes to discuss a study ‘proving’ that statins cause no side-effects at all. Or, at most, they may cause muscle pains in around one in ten thousand people, no more. At the same time, statins save thousands of lives a year. Therefore, everyone should take them, and patients should ignore scaremongering doctors – such as me I suppose – who state that side-effects are common, and potentially serious.

On the radio, Professor Peter Sever, the lead author of the study, suggested that the leaflets warning of side effects should be removed, because once a patient reads that there may be side effects, they will be far more likely to suffer from them, and report them. The so-called ‘nocebo’ effect. The opposite of the placebo effect, whereby people taking medicines think they will get better, or that their pain will be reduced.

There is no doubt that the nocebo effect is real, although the placebo effect is also real, so do these two effects not just cancel each other out? This is a difficult area of medicine, disentangling what is real, from what is imagined.

However, I watched my father in law become unable to walk, whilst taking statins. We were pushing him around in a wheelchair until, eventually, he agreed to stop his statins. At which point he became able to walk a good distance again, and even climb stairs again. A ‘nocebo’ effect? All in the mind? No, of course not.

I had a patient with such severe abdominal pains that she was going to undergo an investigative laparotomy to establish what was causing them. No investigations had revealed anything. I suggested she stop the statins and the pains were completely gone in two days. All in the mind? I have spoken to many other GPs who have reported seeing side effects in many patients.

I suppose if you are trying to push statins as hard as possible, and you built your academic reputation on running trials on statins, you will naturally want to push them as hard as possible. Some ‘experts’ have even suggested putting statins in the water supply.

But this latest report pushes things to a completely ridiculous point. Can I, as a GP, simply tell patients reporting side-effect that ‘you do not have a side effect, they do not exist, it is simply in your mind.’ No, this would be completely ridiculous, and a total denial of your job, which is to listen to what patients tell you. Not to take a horribly, I know best, paternalistic position.

On the other hand, the benefits of statins have been hyped to an almost completely ridiculous degree. We are told that they reduce the risk of having a heart attack by 30%, which sounds highly impressive, if you, like almost everyone, including me, do not understand statistics.

The reality is, that unless you have had a previous heart attack, statins have no effect on overall mortality. To put that another way, they don’t save lives. They don’t even prevent heart attacks or strokes in women with no previous history of heart disease.

The statistic you really want to know about statins is the following. If you have had a heart attack, or stroke, and take a statin for five years, you will increase your life expectancy by 4.2 days. Balance that against a twenty per cent chance of having side effects, some of which are very unpleasant and long-lasting, and you can see why I am not a fan of statins.
Ends.

Currently I am sifting through the original ASCOT paper to find out exactly what they did study, and what they found, and suchlike. The problem with trying to get to grips with research like this is that there are figures, and more figures, and data and exclusion criteria, and things that are not fully explained. So, it is difficult to make any statement about this entire saga, without many hours of detailed research.

However, I can certainly comment on the key finding from the recent Lancet ‘nocebo’ paper. Key or not, it is the finding that they made the most noise about.

‘During the non-blinded non-randomised phase, muscle-related AEs (adverse events) were reported at a significantly higher rate by participants taking statins than by those who were not (161 [1·26% per annum] vs 124 [1·00% per annum]; 1·41 [1·10–1·79]; p=0·006).’

To translate 161 people (out of more than six thousand) complained of muscle pain whilst taking the statin, and 124 people taking a placebo complained of muscle pain. In total 37 more people complained of muscle pain on the statin. This is not, what I would call, a lot. It was an absolute increase, in the risk of reporting adverse effects, of 0.26%.

Compare and contrast this figure with the findings of the ‘Statin USAGE’ study. As far as I know, this was the largest study to look at why people take, then stop taking, statins:

‘The USAGE survey – “Understanding Statin use in Ama and Gaps in Education” – is the largest known cholesterol survey conducted in the U.S., involving more than 10,100 statin users. The USAGE survey explores patient perceptions, attitudes, behaviors and concerns about statins, the most commonly prescribed medications to treat high cholesterol.’ http://www.statinusage.com/Pages/about-survey-respondents.aspx

A number of things were found. The most important of which, is just how many people stopped taking their statins after one year. A pretty staggering 75%. Why did they stop?

‘More than six in ten respondents (62%) said they discontinued their statin due to side effects, with the secondary factor (17%) being medication cost. Only 12% of respondents cited lack of efficacy in cholesterol management as a reason for stopping their medication. On average, respondents who experienced side effects due to their statin stopped after trying two different statins.

Three out of ten respondents experienced side effects of muscle pain and/or weakness, and 34% stopped taking their statin because of these side effects without consulting with their doctor.’

So, on one hand, what the Lancet study found was that 0.26% extra patients reported muscle pain – when they knew they were on a statin. On the other hand, the Statin USAGE survey found that 30% of people experience muscle pain and/or weakness when on a statin. Now, try to get those two figures to match up.

You could argue that the nocebo effect can only account for 0.26% of adverse effects. Therefore, the other 29.74% (30% in the Statin USAGE study – 0.26% nocebo effects) represents the true rate of adverse effects. You could argue that randomised controlled clinical trials do not reflect the experience of taking medication in the real-world environment. You could say that you can believe one of these studies, but not both.

On the other hand, you could move sideways a bit, and wonder why researchers suddenly decided to ‘data dredge’ a twenty-year-old study – not set up to look at adverse effects as a primary end-point – to prove that statins do not have any adverse effects. You could then look at who funded that research and you could ask yourself why would a company currently being sued in the US for not highlighting the adverse effects of statins, decided to use a study to prove that statins do not have adverse effects.

Alternatively, you could ask people who have taken statins, whether they suffered adverse effects, and try to match the number who claim that they do, with the one in ten thousand figure of Professor Peter Sever. And good luck with that. It is hard, I find, not to think that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’

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421 thoughts on “It’s official, statins do not have any side effects”

They will promote and defend their 30 billions wonder drug income a year with their last pence. This is what i think anyways, until they find something “better” and then they will release a statement saying “statins were ok, but now this thing is the holy grail for saving people from heart diseases”.

I know their strategy, it hasn’t changed much and it works because their propaganda is spotless.

I suffered from severe hip pain after only a month on statins. I could hardly walk. I took myself off them and within a month I was better. I would never take them again. Others the doctors tried on me made my mouth swell. It is all for profit. Keep up the good work!

Mine is 7.9 and I was on statins for two years after a heart attack 9yrs ago. Felt washed out all the time, had aches and pains so came off them and am so much happier now, even if my GP isn’t!. I have also taken myself off the two BP drugs they gave me and now no cough or itchy legs and I would rather live a shorter time feeling good than a few days longer on all the awful drugs.

Jane, I am lucky in that I have always had quite low BP, so coming off them caused few problems. I only take a reading about once every two months and it is usually well within the guidelines. My GP did keep lowering the dose and I finally just stopped taking them and don’t seem to have suffered! Feel much more alive. I am 78 and I think that as you age you should try to live with as few drugs as possible. I’m sure that is why there are so many falls etc among the elderly.

Dr Kendrick
It is hard, I find, not to think that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’
seems a good comment to me, plus the Cochrane study that shows the results of trials can usually be presented in a way favorable to the funder.

I think it may be normal for Elders to have higher B/P and Cholesterol levels. As our bodies become deficient in things like some hormones, the Cholesterol rises to try to make more for us. B/P goes up a bit to get the blood to circulate out to the tiny vessels and capillaries as we become more sedentary, heavier, vessels less elastic, etc.

I also heard this pompous and arrogant Professor on the radio last week. Came over as your classic upper class twit, but after an expensive education had the classic “Super Confidence” of those in this stratum – which invariably gets them into position of influence, regardless of ability.
Two things immediately struck me:
• Why focus on statins? If we have a nocebo effect, surely that will affect all pharmaceutical drugs? I would suggest we “follow the money”.
• After having worked with a number of major pharmaceutical companies on the toxicology testing of drugs, my understanding is that these side effects listed for all drugs are produced from the pharmaceutical manufacture’s own test results – and with placebos. Is it not?

Yes, that’s absolutely true. Clinical trials are done by the pharmaceutical industry. What most people don’t understand is that the trials are done on relatively small numbers of people and for short duration of time, compared to when the drug is released on the market and possibly millions are taking it for the rest of their lives. So any side effect seen in the drug trials will only exponentially grow in numbers, maybe not percentage wise but certainly in amount. By the way I’ve read only between 1 and 10% of adverse reactions are actually reported. The bottom line to me is that there is no way of knowing whether you will be a victim of the drug or not. It’s totally random. Have you noticed how many drug advertisements seem to include “possible fatality”?

It’s not completely clear to me if the drug companies have any liabilities as long as they list the possible side effects.

Placebos may not be inactive either. Hint: ask someone who is lactose intolerant what happens when lactose is one of the “inert” ingredients in a pill.

I’m cynical enough to suspect that the “nocebo effect” may turn up as a psychiatric diagnosis in a future edition of the DSM. Naturally there will be a pill that can be prescribed to cure it.

See also “orthorexia”, a psychiatric diagnosis that can theoretically be applied to anyone who fails to follow a HCLF diet. I’m not sure that actually showing health improvements would nullify said diagnosis. Well not in the eyes of those dieticians who believe LCHF diets are highly dangerous, and that Clean Eating – ie. Real Food rather than processed crap-in-a-bag – is also a danger, and that giving up wheat or dairy if you are not diagnosed with coeliac or lactose intolerance is also highly dangerous.

It is Forbidden to answer back to your Betters. Now eat up your processed food and take your statin. You’ll feel much better afterwards.

“Now eat up your processed crap and take your statins…” …and your BP drugs, and your ace inhibs, and your gerd medication and your metformin, and your anti-depressants, and your flu jabs, and the other vaccines we’ve got lined up for you. You’ll live forever, and we won’t ever acknowledge how wretched you feel on all those meds, or that the NHS is breaking under the strain…

If the main benefit of Statins is lowering of inflamation then even for people who have had a heart attack, why take them ?. The Med’ diet alone has been proven to be more effective than Statins. Couple this with other lifestyle/diet changes and surely you have a far more powerful remedy than a statin. Doctors should be saying that Statin may be advisable for people who have had a heart attack and are not willing or capable of embracing a change in diet and lifestyle

Zoe Harcombe did a great piece on the real Med diet a while ago.The TL;DR version is “good quality food (lots of butter, meat, cream, cheese etc,), cooked well, and eaten with pleasure in a leisurely fashion.” For me the key takeaways were moderate quantities, eaten at leisure, and variety. There’s a horrible trend in the US of eating on the go, having lunch at your desk, and eating in front of the idiot box. (I must admit to being guilty of all 3!) None of that is good for the digestion nor does it lead to good food choices.

I use the term ‘Med’ diet loosely although if you want to stick to the study that showed it to be more effective than Statins then I think it was the Lyon heart study. Bottom line is eat a non inflamatory diet rather than the pro inflamatory typical western diet

I don’t think it is just the food. The other factor, certainly in the past, was the more relaxed, social style of eating that reduces stress (hormones). Think how pressured meals are today, people ‘graze’ at their work desks, or the eat ‘on the hoof’, or they watch TV over a takeaway, maybe tweeting trivia all the time. We have become a herd which big business milks.

Having just returned from a holiday in Italy, the mediterranean diet there consists of various cured meats, mozarella or other cheese, fish, tomatoes, olive oil, more tomatoes, pizza, pasta, risotto; the latter not exactly low carbohydrate. What they do do is spend several hours eating their main meal spread over several courses each of which had small portions of the different components from the list above.
From what I have seen the Mediterranean diet still depends on carbohydrates, but perhaps with less emphasis than in theUK; most European countries also tend to consume full fat ingredients. Processed meat products that are identified as potential carcinogens and should be eaten occasionally in the UK are widely consumed.

My diet tends to be low carb these days and as a result I am the same weight as when I was 23, I am now 60. In fact an interesting thing happened to me. As usual I went away for a few months to Portugal and as usual I came back only 0.5kg up on mu usual weight (I eat out a lot over there). However half way through I went to Rome for a week to celebrate my 60th and before returning to Portugal I had to pop back to the UK briefly. Now in Rome its Pizza, Pasta and them more of the same everywhere so we relented and I tended to as in Rome for a week. I do not normally touch wheat based products. When I popped back into the UK I was 4kg over my usual weight which all dropped off as I spent a final month in Portugal

Italians eat tons of carbs – pasta and some bread. It’s good quality though. I haven’t seen them eat much processed, modern food because they are very proud of their culinary tradition. Lots of things are made from scratch, the way it’s been done for centuries. It’s amazing to take a flight from Italy to London and see immediate expansion of people’s waistlines…

Portuguese eat carbs too. There’s bread served with every meal in restaurants. Good quality, though. Very tasty. They also eat sweets of large variety from what I have seen. Also good quality and tasty.

Compared to northern Italians, Portuguese are stocky and shorter. When they are overweight, they are just pudgy with the weight evenly distributed. Unlike Americans, many of whom seem to be getting grotesquely fat. I was in Costco yesterday (it’s a discount, buy in bulk club) and it was painful to watch…

Portuguese also take pride that so much of their food is locally sourced and one person I spoke to said that they resist attempts by the EU to “integrate” their economy so that they would have to depend on certain products from somewhere else. At least, that’s what he told me.

It is difficult to disagree with any of the points raised about the Med diet. But I would like to add one more thing concerning the effect of lifestyle . . . I am thinking of weather, which is sort of lifestyle. I seem to remember a Zöe Harcombe videoed lecture where she was looking at the Key’s study associating saturated fat consumption and CVD deaths. She pointed out that she had a much better correlation, using his figures, between CVD deaths and latitude. Well, I have upped my olive oil consumption, eating plenty of nuts, lots of oily fish . . . but, as I put on an extra jumper, what the hell am I going to do about the Sun?

From personal experience doctors and dieticians are not trained in providing guidance in “diet and lifestyle” . They are highly trained in prescribing a pill for what ails you, mainly treat lab numbers. Health is your own responsibility.

I have learn’t (thanks to Dr K and others of his thinking) that nobody should abdicate their health to their medical professional and rely on Big Pharma meds. Take responsibility for your own health and work with a medical professional who can guide you through the diagnosis and return to health applying meds when really necessary.
Looking around I see many obese health abdicators – shame.

Since inflammation is a key condition in causing Heart Disease, how about more is said about refined sugar being a key cause of making our body acidic, ie, causing inflammation. The Sugar industry/and Government has brain washed us into thinking Fats are the problem. So, here we go – stop eating Fats, eat lots of Carbs (sugars), take your statins, become Diabetic, live miserable lives, and die anyway.

Some years ago now, my father was prescribed Statins not long before he was due to go on his holidays. Now if there is one thing my Dad loves, it is getting away and going somewhere new. This year However, this year he suddenly decided he was not sure he wanted to go away on his holidays. He was eventually persuaded by the family to go. Whilst away he declined into a state of complete depression, something never ever seen before in my Dad. Mom couldn’t understand it and just happened to suggest he stopped taking, “Those new pills you have been given”. He did and within days he recovered to his normal love life self. Now, I know for certain that at that time none of us ever read the “bit of paper” that came with your meds, we just took note of the dose instructions attached by the pharmacist. So how could that have possibly been a noseebo reaction.

So many people like your father, who took their pills on good faith, have experienced adverse effects from statins. It is exceedingly disingenuous, and extremely condescending to be told that “it is all that in the mind” because one read the packet insert.

I’ve now reached the point that I’ve heard so many lies from statinators that virtually nothing they say could persuade me to take the bloody things. It would be as daft as believing anything a President of the US had to say about WMD.

Anyway surely we must be about to be flooded with equally dishonest arguments for the replacement drugs.

robert lipp: I don’t know how many people know this, but it was the U.S. government (including the CDC, who sent anthrax) which supplied Saddam Hussein with his WMD, during the Reagan administration and the early Daddy Bush years. He was our buddy then. So he really had them at one time, but was actually telling the truth by the time of Dubya when he said they had been destroyed. The CIA surely knew this. Stupidity of the most colossal sort, the Iraq adventure. Trump, as awful as he is in some ways, is proposing real cuts to the bloated beast the U.S government has become.

Hmm. Do these results include those who dropped out of the study due to adverse effects? With a median follow-up time of 2.3 years, I reckon not. I tried to find the drop out rate and came across a document about the ASCOT trial that said 25% discontinued their medication (of all types not just statins) due to adverse effects. So while the conclusions of this latest paper may be correct – there’s a small nocebo effect in those who are able to take statins long term – maybe the results would look a little different if they included drop-outs.

Well said Pauline. Adverse side effects seem to appear after differing amounts of time with different people. In my own case I trusted my doctor and took them for 3 years before the problems all kicked in at once – memory loss, tight tendons, muscle loss, fatigue. Now after four years off the things my memory is fine, my feet are now almost permanently painful, but I no longer drag my self up the stairs and can run up again.

I was so angry when I heard Professor Sever suggest my side effects were all in my head…

“It’s all in your head”. That’s the doctors’ “go to” mantra about ALL drugs when they have no other explanations they want to give their patients. As if everyone’s *mind* has the same reaction.

Besides, if those guys knew, or wanted to share with patients, anything at all about the psychiatric industry and the lies THEY tell, it would open a whole new can of worms. Just go to youtube and look up Death By Medicine (it’s been updated a couple of times since the original in 2003 or 2005 or whenever). It’s an eye-opening documentary on the falsehoods we’ve all been primed to believe from our doctors and all the skunk science surrounding their “facts”. I call it skunk science because it stinks. If you take the time to watch it you won’t be disappointed and you will come away with a whole new attitude about the craziness of the medical industrial complex, the world over.

Mad in America
Anatomy of an Epidemic
and two books by Professor Goetzche “Dangerous Drugs and Organized Crime” and another one on psychiatric drugs whose title I don’t remember.

There’s also a blog by a psychiatrist describing how pharma was paying him $600 a pop to go once a week to a paid lunch with fellow psychiatrists and talk about the wonders of anti depressants. Pharma knows that MDs would respond better to having lunch with a colleague rather than listen to a sales pitch by pharma reps. It later got parlayed into him going to all expense paid speaking conferences billed as educational seminars. With a nice honorarium afterwards.

A year into it he got out of it and had enough courage to go on record and describe the whole process. It was a hard thing to give up, he was making extra 50K a year just by going to lunches once a week.

An astounding lesson of my many decades of medical practice was the commonality of adverse drug reactions. Strange that I myself over several years was a victim. I developed a neuropathy, consisting of shooting, stinging, sharp electric shocks radiating from buttocks to toes, waking me nearly nightly from sound sleep. Visits to doctors and neurologists were unavailing. I was on no new medications and had been taking the same pills for more than a decade. I began to believe that drugs were implicated. The likeliest was a statin drug, the ever-popular Lipitor. Based on my cholesterol level I had reduced it to only three times weekly. Every physician I had visited dismissed my suggestion. Statins had a low-risk profile and almost never induced neuropathic pains. I had been taking it over many years without symptoms and in a minuscule dose.(3) Though “irrational,” I stopped Lipitor. Within three days the symptoms disappeared. For the first time in several years I slept through the night without discomfort. It seemed miraculous. Ever the skeptic scientist, I restarted the Lipitor. Within three days, the very same symptoms recurred, only to disappear again on drug cessation. — https://bernardlown.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/power-to-the-people-patient-in-command

I have a similar story from an older man who had “mysterious” pain in his leg that no one could diagnose. They kept offering him more pills in addition to 8 or 9 he was already taking. I told him that he most likely was suffering from statin induced neuralgia and that he should read books on the subject, including yours. In the end, without ever bothering to read anything, he decided to reduce his dosage in half, thus achieving some sort of cognitive compromise between two opposing view points.

If the drop outs are not included then that would totally invalidate the research. One could assume that the adverse events would occur within a short period of time since instigation of treatment.Therefore the population under study would be the statin tolerators!!

In real life, patients know whether they are taking medication or placebo. Given that the study is considering the impact of the nocebo effect, I’d say it had to be unblinded. I don’t think that’s the whole story though (see my comment above).

So do the prescribers and they would be recording / reporting the adverse event if they deemed it serious or credible enough.Recording adverse events and reporting them is very hit and miss as it’s yet another piece of recording of the already time limited consultation.

I was put on Statins with the sole purpose of reducing my cholesterol which was 5.6 ? After 3 months I felt aching in my calves so my doctor said stop taking them for a couple of days to see if there was any difference. There wasn’t. A few months later whilst the pain was getting worse I popped into the Pharmacy to ask if there was anything I could take to relieve the pain. He suggested stopping the statins for a month . All back to normal. no more statins for me and no-one at the surgery has questioned my cholesterol levels

When I was prescribed statins here in Spain I wasn’t warned of any potential side-effects. It was only after I noticed my calf muscles begin to ache after ten or so minutes vigorous walking on my thirty-minute daily walk that I began to think there might be some connection to one of the several drugs I was taking. I read the small print of each, and there it was: statins.

True enough, the aim is not to cure but to maintain the customer alive enough to purchase and consume a wide range of expensive pharmaceuticals designed specifically for the purpose, each one supporting the other. No doubt government research grants and tax breaks have not enabled big pharma to develop and market a product to alleviate the pains caused by statins and have therefore declared it non-existent.

Hmmm, it seems to me that increasingly GPs are not supposed to listen to their patients’ symptoms but are actually just to do as they are told by their governing bodies, NICE etc, who seem to very sadly be under the influence of big pharma.

This has been going on for years now with regards to those suffering from thyroid symptoms, so in many ways it is not unsurprising (although very disappointing) that the symptoms of those suffering side-effects from taking statins should be equally dismissed. Perhaps they will also be told that they must be depressed and offered an anti-depressant to take with their statins.

I was put on statins to lower cholesterol which just happens to be a side effect of my thyroid problems. I felt like the statin and thyroxine meds were doing battle with each other. I like running to keep fit but felt so exhausted i couldn’t get out the door. I stopped the statins but haven’t told my doctor….but feel human again thank goodness.

Most thyroid issues are related to a lack of proper amounts of iodine (balanced with other minerals). Check out the works of Dr. David Brownstein and Dr. Mark Sircus for info on why EVERYONE is probably low on iodine since there have been a rash of thyroid issues in the past 20 years (via the food supply most likely). Our foods no longer contain the very important minerals we need, almost worse than we need vitamins.

Using a good grade of sea salt can be very helpful with iodine and other minerals. Most people are also very to extremely low in both magnesium and potassium, both of which regulate hearts and minds. Most people also take too much calcium and don’t balance it well with their other mineral intake. Calcium causes plaque build-up and if you are getting proper amounts of calcium from foods (like raw milk and other dairy products) you really don’t need excess calcium from supplements. That’s just my opinion but it does explain why “medicine” needed to create a calcium channel blocker, non?

@ robert lipp: I already take K2 (the MK-7) along with 5,000 IU of D3. I can only take 400 mg of magnesium, in split doses, or it has a “liquidizing” effect if you get my drift. ;-0) We drink a lot of raw dairy (goat and cow) and I make my own butter and a few other things from the raw dairy so I should be getting adequate food sources of calcium in the right quantities. You’re right though, and thanks – that’s a great way to make sure the calcium is absorbed into the bone, where it belongs!

@ jane: The K2 I take has100 mcg of K2 and 250 mg of alfalfa powder (it is from NOW products). I used to take the Jarrow MK-7 but they started adding soy to theirs, so I dropped it. For my body, anything with soy acts as a hormonal firecracker, so I avoid it. I don’t much care for soy or corn in any form anyway,as most of that junk is totally GMO, so I avoid both. The D3 I take is from Healthy Origins because they’re the only company I could find who DIDN’T add soy oil to their gelcaps. I take Solaray Magnesium Asporotate (1 in the a.m. and 1 in the p.m.) and those are 200 mg each. I also use 2 tsp daily of bovine collagen (Bernard Jensen brand from amazon) and I “bloom” it in cold water first and then you can add it to other cold drinks or hot coffee or whatever. I add 1/2 tsp beet root powder to that if I’m just going to drink it in water or freshly juiced fruit. If you don’t mind the taste of beets, you can add it to anything you like. I love beets so I use it all kinds of ways. I’m working my way (slowly) up to 1 TBSP of beet root powder daily. Supposed to help the health and elasticity of arteries, veins and thus, of course, hypertension. We’ll see. Something about the nitric oxide . . . maybe Dr. Kendrick can elaborate??

I understand that they iodine receptors of the thyroid are preferentially blocked by other halides such as chlorine (tap water), fluoride (toothpaste) and bromine (found in many processed foods) so it’s little wonder that there is a thyroid disease epidemic….

Me too Christine. I lived with undiagnosed thyroid problems for about 25 years. Once diagnosed I was put on a high dose of thyroxine. Great, I took up running again and was regularly doing respectable time in half marathons. When I was 50 my present was angina, at the time my cholesterol was 5.2, BP 130/85 (mmmm go figure). Following the fitting of a stent I was put on a battery of medication; statin (20mg), Clopidergrol (an anti- clotting statin like drug), a beta blocker and a low dose aspirin- all standard treatments following this procedure. Could I run with all this? Yes up to a point. After some discussion with my cardiologist he , somewhat reluctantly I felt, I dropped the beta blocker and Clopidergrol. My running improved. A couple of years later I was told my cholesterol had risen to 5.6 from 4.8. After this s**t began to happen; fatigue when exercising, temporary memory loss and a semi-dead leg. I decided myself to cut out the statin and guess what, all the symptoms went away, except the dead leg which is much better but still there. I never read the paper insert in the packaging nor had I done any internet research.

Nigella P
GPs are, I am afraid, and have been made my the medical establishment, to be the scapegoats of their lack of knowledge of recent medical research that contradicts the so-called “consensus” therapies which have produced decades before. Elsewhere I give examples.

A further example of their total disregard of patients’ needs is the QoF package that every doc has to fill in. In this programme, there is absolutely NO, I repeat NO, inclusion for reporting adverse reactions or indeed any patient safety issues. The only concern seems to be that all doctors are doing what they are told to do by the DIRECTIVES (aka guidelines)

I have raised this issue of a “Safety Policy” with my MP and NHS-NI, with a zero effect.

Be kind to your GP, they are a much beleaguered and endangered but highly valuable species

My GP actually has half a Clue – and since the PCT and the previous Practice Manager went away she is less inhibited in using it.

Once she showed me Big Brother in action – because I was “prediabetic” she wanted to get me an HbA1c, to back up my self-testing which she was previously adamant I should not be doing.

“Is patient diabetic? Test denied!” the computer spat back. She had to cheat and claim I was diabetic to be permitted the test, which costs a few pounds. A little bit less than the cost of an amputation, or dialysis, or the “two or three” diabetes meds she “would have expected me to be on by now”.

Some of her colleagues, and most of the nurses, are still hogtied by The Rules.

She no longer even bothers to hassle me about the statins I stopped taking – which I did despite being one of the few people I know not to have any side effects, proved by stopping and restarting them a couple of times to check. She pretty much agreed that since I doubled my HDL and reduced my trigs to 1/10 of what they were, slightly high LDL is not of concern.

It took a long time before she correlated my LCHF diet and the much reduced bill for my “regular” drugs which I no longer require, but I think she’s there now, aided by feedback from other patients and doctors and nurses elsewhere.

Part of my problem, which is common to I suspect a majority of the population, is insulin resistance, and the statins along with my low fat diet *may* have been a factor.

The other part of my problem, which is specific mostly to males in one line of my family, and to a small but significant number of other individuals/families, is a lack of Phase 1 insulin, but still a decent Phase 2 output. Similar to one of the MODYs. In retrospect I was born with this, or at least it started in early childhood.

The statin *may* have amplified my degeneration but it’s hard to tell. All I can say is that my health rapidly went to hell in a handbasket shortly after meeting a dietician, and improved equally rapidly and stayed that way for over a decade when I ate the exact opposite of what I was told. At most, statins may have been the icing on the cake.

First, do no harm wasn’t it? Well it actually goes something like this with statins:
First, trip over a mycotoxin that inhibits the mevalonate pathway of which cholesterol is one product. Then tinker with it enough so that people don’t die suddenly. Then patent statin with CoQ10 because you know that CoQ10 is one of the compounds affected by cutting off the tree at the base and is very important …but don’t go to market with said mixture. Then over hype neglible study results by using relative risk ratios. Then promote hard amongst docs…in fact the jar of jelly beans on doc’s desk is now a jar of statins. Last of all, do no harm. How can any doc in good conscience dish statins out in the face of such overwhelming evidence that they are ineffective and deleterious to health? I once tried to avail a doc of the evidence but she was too busy to read it.

Craig…a few years ago my GP dismissed my concerns regarding statins and other drugs. I realised that by sending me away with a flea in my ear, something awful was happening to our NHS. I had always thought that professionals worth their salt were open to discussion….seems not. It was at that point that I decided to do further research regarding commonly prescribed medicines, and realised how we have been conned by big Pharma for many a year. I am much the better for understanding these matters, albeit at an elementary level.

Dr. Kendrick, I listened to the debate you engaged in on the Jeremy Vine show, excellent rebuttal of the Professors claims.

I was diagnosed with high blood pressure a few months ago and put on 1.25mg of Ramipril. My doctor took great care to explain to me the likelihood, note likelihood not possibility, of suffering dizzy spells for a few days after starting the course. He told me to read the leaflet with the medication, which I dutifully did, and noted the range of side effects.

Strangely, I didn’t, and haven’t suffered any side effects, despite being told I was very likely to.

Judging by Professor Severs study, I should have, because I was told I would.

What a lot of nonsense, for all the reasons you state, and because Professor Severs seems to think adult patients are all numpties and don’t understand the concept of side effects.

I suspect that Prof Severs would simply prefer that all adverse reactions were totally ignored by returning to the snake-oil policies of the 18th and 19th centuries thus allowing all pharmaceutical (allopathic) drugs but with the exclusion of all natural therapies. I also suspect that he would support the termination of the MHRA Yellow Card system for reporting adverse events (https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/) which is currently open to everyone to report adverse events.

No doubt he would also like the MHRA Daps database (https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/iDAP/) to be delete or at least restricted to “approved users”. This database provides information on all adverse reactions reported for virtually all medicines. I find it extremely useful.

I also suspect that he would like the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPCs), which currently are allowed to be seen by the general public under EU law, to be restricted to “approved users”.

Hehe, you just reminded me of a colleague who was given, I think, a beta blocker, and took his first dose in the office.

After a while he resembled that creature from Star Trek who turned into a pool of liquid and slept in a bucket. He literally couldn’t stay on his chair, so we poured him into his car and drove him home. He was away for a couple of days.

I was somewhat apprehensive when I was first prescribed Losartan, half expecting the same thing to happen, but I had no side effects at all. Nor from Amlodipine. So is this an anti-nocebo effect I’m suffering from?

Another excellent article – I am looking forward to the appearance of all this series appearing in book form. Unfortunately the power of Big Pharma and its KOLs and the conflicted medican establishment is such that there is no chance of these views appearing in any medical journal. I once tried to get a short note on statin adverse reactions from the late Dr Duane Graveline published in PLOS; a signal failure.

To be pedantic, the correct term is not side-effects, it is drug related adverse events. A side effect can be positive, or negative.

This is not pedantic. It is simply the plain truth as it has and always will be. The use of “side effects” is and always has been a case of Big Pharma astroturfing and agnotology practice (ie confusing, obfuscating, distraction and misdirection). I have serially commented to this effect.

In particular, in the Collins’s HPS study(2002) a case is made that there were few adverse reactions but at the same time it failed to remind readers that the finally selected patients were ALL previously tested with statins to ensure that they were statin tolerant. Talk about deliberate confusion and obfuscation – most unscientific to say the least!. In fact this study, as Dr de Lorgeril has pointed out flagrantly left out significant data to avoid real comparisons being made.

Another fact that I dispute is the validity of the so-called blinding of the study: any physician checking routine test result would observe the falling TC levels in treated patients – a clear indication of treatment or non-treatment, turning an assumed observation from objective to subjective with unknown consequences in the results.

In your previous article the value of meta-analyses was roundly criticised to the point where Big Pharma sponsored meta-analyses were totally unreliably. I would consider any meta-analysis emanating from the Oxford CTU in this class.

A further point is that much of the DIRECTIVES from the medical establishment are still welded irrevocably to so-called research of the Pre-1960-70s before availability of a relatively simple immunoassay (CDC – https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhanes/2007-2008/labmethods/glu_e_met_insulin.pdf) became available . Examples are Hicarb/Lofat (Ancel Keys) and the “insulin testing adds nothing to treatment protocols” despite the extensive research (N.Engl J Med 353: 1459-62.cited in and elsewhere in Kraft R Diabetes Epidemic & You Kindle Location 388) that clearly showed the value of testing fasting insulin levels.

Frankly I am loathe to believe anything from Big Pharma and its KOLs(including wannabe KOLs)

I’m a type 2 diabetic. I had to demand and insulin test. HbA1c – no problem, we’ll do that twice a year to get the insurance company $$$.. But test insulin? Why would you want to do that?

My answer was that I wanted to know how much insulin I was producing as a guide to both insulin resistance and pancreatic function. The result: high end of the normal range. So, still insulin resistant, but haven’t burned out my beta cells yet, so keep on LCHF!

Mike, checked out your contribution. you might want to contact Healthwatch if you have not done so. There is both a national and local form. Many would argue, that they are a waste of money, there to give an illusion of involving the public. I think they are not used enough and they could have influence.

Mike,
while a book form of these 28 blogs (on Heart Disease only) and counting would be neat and tidy, we would all miss out on the many, varied, interesting, informative, supportive, referenced, intriguing, …, comments. Some indicate the wide ranging and amazing researchers (that’s us, Dr K’s many readers from all walk’s of life) that all add much richness to the discussion. I don’t think that even a selection of these comments would do the book a real justice.

Dr K has simply to drop a new idea into the pond and then the comments flow off and on topic – fascinating – love it.

Ok so the effects were all in my mind – well that just about defines it, since the one thing I didn’t connect with the statins, when I finally declined them after two years, was the memory lapses, and inability to construct a coherent sentence, or remember simple everyday words like “buttercup” and “van”. I was having enough trouble recovering from two by-pass ops within a year, and trying to keep the family on the road, without courting a diagnosis of early dementia, which was what I thought it was. Either that or a mini-stroke during the operations. I was keeping very quiet about that, but the pains in my ams and legs became so obtrusive and debilitating, and were so very different to any I had every had before, that I told the doctor I wanted to try going without the statins to see if that was the cause. When I asked if he was going to yellow card it, he said that the pain was so well known that it wasn’t worth bothering. The mental problems resoved more slowly until I realised they were gone. Then I realised that was wht the leaflet ment by “cognitive function”
The bastards know, and they also know that we know that they know.
Happy the person who manages to find a GP who is not one of the bastards.

I think my current GP is gradually being better than she used to be, for which in part I suspect the replacement of the PCT with a CCG and a relaxing of some of The Rules.

I actually knew a VERY clueful consultant, way back in the early eighties. In retrospect he had worked out a lot of what is now called epigenetics, in that he had OBSERVED that supposedly “genetic” conditions, like gallstones and Crohn’s, were not only becoming more common but were changing in incidence – for example the then classic view was that gallstone patients were “fat, fair, female, forties, fertile . . .” yet they were occurring more often in younger and non-obese patients, and in males.

He’d also pretty much worked out “metabolic syndrome” before or around the same time as Gerald Reaven. However no-one’s perfect, he was still wedded to the belief that all these things occurred due to (saturated) fat. Would be interesting to dig him up and ask his opinion on statins.

There have been articles in The Times recently, suggesting that everyone should go back to their GP to question if they are on the right statin dosage, as gazillions are in danger of imminent death because they are on the wrong strength, or should be on the latest, better, (oh, much much better!) version of the statin they were on before. No mention of the fact that “generics” are cheaper, now that the originals are out of “copyright” and therefore newbies made by Big Pharma must replace the oldies in order to keep profits up. Oh, and unless the new government promises untold gold for the NHS, all to be spent on “essential” drugs, then Big Pharma will go into a Brexit sulk, and take all its business and manufacturing out of Britain, so there! Stamp stamp of very powerful feet and very big fists on the money desk… And has anyone noticed the recent multiple attacks on Andrew Wakefield and his anti-vaccines stance and evidence?

Andrew Wakefield will always be attacked – – because he’s on the right track and our elitist PHRMA industry can’t handle it. Their entire future is tied up with vaccines, see. Sadly, so is ours if we let it happen.

Is he? I have seen evidence that flu jabs are questionable, but does that mean that all vaccinations are misguided?

This field seems to be much different to things like carbs, statins, seed oils, fructose, where there is enough solid science out there that anyone with an open mind must doubt the official position. I am just not in a position to say that this is because the official position is sound, or because there is more work to be done.

@ Eric: Have you seen the list of adjuvants used in vaccines today? If not, maybe you better take a good look at what goes into a vaccine and see if you want that injected into your body or your children’s bodies.

Also, did you know that more people who had the flu jab GOT the flu than didn’t? Not to mention the fact that those vaccines shed and that’s not a good thing for a live virus vaccine to do. For immune compromised people, it can be very bad to be around anyone who has just been vaccinated with ANY live virus shot.

You prolly need to be doing a little more research to find answers to your own questions.

please don’t condescend. I try to keep an open mind, but being a scientist, even if not of the live sciences, I know that things usually are not all that straightforward, and that some reservation is appropriate on either side of the debate.

I’m with you in that flu vaccination is at best questionable. Note that live vaccination is currently not recommended in the US, and that is practically insignificant in Europe where I live. From official data, live vaccination sounds like a good deal for those who are vaccinated, maybe not so much for those who cannot or choose not to get vaccinated.

About adjuvants, that is a valid concern, but it is dose that makes a poison. Still, I wonder if some adjuvants have any business being in the formulations, and what evidence their inclusion is based on.

Yes, I probably need to do some more research, but there are so many things to look into, many triggered by Malcolm’s entries and wayward comments. What I have researches leaves me unconvinced of the flu jab, which I decided to forego this year, and instead supplement with Vit D drops. At the same time, for now i remain unconvinced that vaccination against pathogens that mutate more slowly are a bad idea.

Inclusion of adjuvants isn’t based on evidence. It’s based on a need. A need to stimulate the immune system by an artificial method. The body doesn’t respond in the same way to a vaccine as it does to an infection.

You can check out the videos on YouTube by Tatyana Obukhanych who has a PhD in immunology. She goes into great detail on this difference.

The latest I saw about the flu vaccine was that it makes you far more likely to get an ‘influenza-like illness’ than if you don’t get it. Unless people get lab-tested, they probably don’t have the flu that the vaccine is meant to prevent but they still have something akin to it. When I worked in medical environments, I always refused the flu jab and nearly everyone else was off sick shortly afterwards with something or other flu-like, apart from me.

There is also research (on baboons) showing that being vaccinated with the acellular pertussis vaccine causes the vaccinee to be an asymptomatic carrier of the bacterium who can then infect others! I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the same for humans. So it’s not just live vaccines that can spread disease….

Gay Corran: Yes, here in the U.S., too. They’re getting desperate, as Vaxxed and social media connections have raised the public awareness of vaccine injury. In a recent editorial the Boston Herald called questioning vaccine safety a “hanging offense.” Capital punishment for questioning a medical procedure! Here is a graphic which helps explain what has gone so terribly wrong:https://www.learntherisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Doses_v2.pdf

As an addendum I was once told by the UK DoH that it was “unethical to treat a patient who was allergic or had adverse reactions to a drug”. This was after complaining to them regarding the HPS practice of selecting only “tolerant patients” and then extrapolating the results to patients excluded from the study on the grounds of intolerance.

Odd how they just LOVE to focus on relative risk differences to promote the “benefits” of statins (33% reduction in heart attack risk!! – 2 events vs. 3) … except this time, when it’s suddenly all about absolute risk difference. Hmmm … 1.00% vs. 1.26% may be a 0.26% difference in absolute risk – but it looks like a 26% increase in relative risk.

Not that different from the USAGE study, eh? I’ll not only never take the damn pills again – it’s caused me, regrettably, perhaps, to doubt everything about modern preventive medicine. Or maybe that’s a positive secondary effect.

If you get real muscle pains while on statins, it is because your brain imagines that you need to feel pain, and induces pain. It is a result of anti-statin propaganda, or an over-cautious doctor advising you that you might feel pain. It is not because the statins have disrupted the normal biological functioning of your body (allegedly).

But hang on a mo. The nocebo is a sword that cuts two ways.

If I listen to the statin boosters and fear that not taking statins will cause me to have a heart attack, and I actually do have a heart attack while not on statins, I could argue that it is the statin promoters that drove my mind to mentally induce the heart attack out of fear, not because there was anything physiologically wrong with me. Therefore I have a claim against those who promote statins.

I was ill for more than three months. Quit atovastatin. Perfectly well in four days. Fine.
But the alarming thing is that my young cardiologist ( who then offered me a reduced dose “No thanks”, then fibrates “No”, then Zetia “No”, then $Repatha$ “Nope, but thanks anyway” ) proudly “educates” the doctors at the local hospital about cholesterol.

Mike . . . I skimmed the article, stumblingly over one questionable statement after another, wondering how they were going to get from the starting point to the view that statins use should not be expanded, and was about to give up when something caught my eye!

It was a section describing how statin advocate Rory Collins (one of the leaders of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration) doesn’t hide his irritation over the enduring [statin] controversy; and, after describing Rory’s irritation, the writer finishes with “Which raises the question: How can respectable scientists see the same data and reach such different conclusions?”

At which point you want to shout loud enough for the writer to hear . . . “But we haven’t seen Rory’s data . . . he wont let us see it”

Ah, yes, he who pays the piper calls the tune. And the tune Pfizer et al. call is “We’re in the money, we’re in the money”. I keep wondering, since numerous data analyses cited by Dr. K and others consistently show that lower all-cause mortality in people over 65 correlates positively with HIGHER cholesterol levels, why are we so obsessed with lowering everyone’s cholesterol level? Oh, and the data also show cholesterol level is not a good predictor of cardiac problems.

Those nocebo effects can be pretty powerful. I know a woman who after years of taking statins had her liver enzymes shoot up into 400’s, lost so much muscle mass she went from size 8 to size 2 and when she had liver biopsy it showed central tissue necrosis.

She was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis (most likely nocebo induced) and was told she needs to do a couple of years of steroids followed by immuno suppressant drugs. She skipped that and did other things.

For years after she suffered from “mysterious” shooting pains in her legs that none of the GPs she went to could diagnose probably because they have never heard of statin induced neuralgia.

And recently, because of family history of heart disease and all the wonderful things statins do to your CoQ10, she developed A-fib, TIAs, and other heart issues.

What does her cardiologist suggest she do apart from blood thinners, etc? Statins.

Going back to the fraca between Dr Godlee of the BMJ and the arch-promoter of statins in 2014 the arguments then and now do not seem to have changed. I had my say then. The only change I would make is to identify in detail the failings of the Collins 2002 paper.http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3306/rapid-responses
descending page 5 ( Dr John Briffa had nearly 1000 “likes”

When you have seen the “side effects” at close range as me and my wife on two of our relatives (one in wheel chair and the other with severe dementia – never before seen in our family tree) you tend to believe that the side effects of statins are for real!

And of course this belief is enhanced by the metabolic logic involved – cholesterol being an essential component of our human biology.

I’m convinced that my late mother-in-law’s dementia was exacerbated by the high dose of statins that she’d been on for years, a dose that was never lowered despite her having lost a lot of weight. Her memory problems were most noticeable after her statin, which she took at night, whereas the other drugs she was prescribed were taken later in the morning. We had no idea that memory problems might have been affected by the statins, but due to our observations we examined published adverse effects for all the drugs she took, and coincidentally found that memory problems were linked with statins. Unfortunately, after trying to discuss these findings with her GP who insisted she needed them, we eventually tried stopping them, but this had minimal benefit (although there was some definite improvement) as her dementia was by that time advanced.

My 63 Year old husband took statins for a few months. . When he started he was very robust and muscular. After this short time on statins,, he became a deflated version of himself — a scrawny old man. He then started taking CoQ10 and began a disciplined regime of rowing but this had no effect on muscle building nor did the moderately heavy manual labor clearing of our property. Recently, at age 67, he added PQQ and d-ribose to his supplementation, and the change has been miraculous. He is building muscle again that is commensurate with his weight-lifting type activities. I suspect it was the PQQ that made the difference? Also the effect of the statins may have been exacerbated by the niacin his doctor also prescribed as well as the copious amounts of grapefruit juice he drank because we had a grapefruit tree.

There can also be some funky interactions between two or more drugs competing for breakdown via the same Cytochrome P45 enzyme – plasma levels may shoot up, or even down, depending on the combination. Do NICE Directives – oh I mean Guidelines – take this into account I wonder.

About a year ago after 35 years on Lipitor I started experiencing really chronic shoulder pain. Nothing worked to alleviate the pain which kept me awake at night. I stopped taking statins and the pain was gone within 1 month. They power of the mind is wonderful (Not?)

Good thing you didn’t snap a tendon there, another well known “nocebo” side effect of statins. That’s what happened to my aunt who then had to have rotator cuff surgery. You would think that being an MD she should have known these things…

Dr. Kendrick, I love the way you smack every nail, bang, on the head.
This isn’t about statins but I am so excited, I need to tell you the following:-
A few months back my neighbour’s blood pressure went sky high. Having been fitted with a pacemaker for hypotension, she was now suffering hypertension. Sadly I’m no medicine woman, but anyone with an ounce of sense knows SALT raises BP and lack of salt, well you know where I’m going with this… I suggested she increase her potassium and gave her a list of vegetables high in the stuff. By the time her GP appointment came up her BP was normal and continues to be. She told her GP her regimen. Luckily, he’s a decent old boy, plus he’s married to a dietician. He was impressed with my neighbour’s results and showed her the contents of his (high potassium) lunch.
We live in a world of high profile misinformation and low profile truth. We want an “easy” life. Fast food is “easy”, but full of salt (and god know what else). Real food takes time to prepare, but contains nutrients. We aren’t informed about basics, like the sodium/potassium balance because ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’. We need a new tune.
P.S. I live in a poor (ex mining) district. My neighbour is a local woman. She is spreading the word about potassium to anyone and everyone who’ll listen! That’s one way tunes develop, from grass roots…

All fruits and vegetables are loaded with potassium and low in sodium. Maybe celery is high in sodium but still would have high potassium. Btw, sodium has never really been indicted in heart disease. It’s probably the processed foods which are loaded with sodium and low in nutrients that cause an imbalance in sodium/potassium balance. Otherwise it’s fine to add a bit of salt to food. There are also products that mimic salt and have some sodium plus potassium in them, called nu-salt. Maybe others. If that’s not enough you can purchase potassium supplements, in either pill or powder form.

You’re just a little misguided on the salt thing, but then most people don’t understand the role of sodium in the body. Here’s a page with all kinds of stuff to read: https://www.westonaprice.org/?s=salt

Dr. Kendrick, I have been trying to get the facts on salt for ages now and you have pointed me in the right direction, thank you. I am still struggling with why Gerson treatment “forbids” salt, but that is because I don’t understand cells. I will keep reading…
All the best,
Sue

There is a product called Slow-K tablets. I don’t know if they are POM

Salt – I have lots of papers on this subject – for the healthy subject a “higher” intake (9-15g/day) is actually associated with longer life. 4-5g/day (in the healthy) results in trivial reductions of SBP; indeed in some it actually resulted in an increase (trivial).

In the case of salt intolerance due to disease it is of value but this is no reason for everyone to worry about it

You still have to make sure you’re using the natural salts (sea salts, himalayan salts, whatever) not the junk from the grocery store which has been bleach, iodized (improperly) and has something fake added to it so it will “flow”.

BP numbers have more to do with stress and emotions, I believe, than they do with salt intake. But there again, that’s just my opinion. I have white coat syndrome something awful. But if my BP stayed as high as it is in the doctor’s office, I’d have been dead a long time ago, were it an issue. In the past 25+ years my doctor and I are getting farther and farther apart on our beliefs in what good health consists of. That’s part of the reason my BP goes sky high in his office. Also, I’m one of “those people” who believe that as we age our BP is higher because it has to be. 140/90 has been considered perfectly normal for a long time and as far as I’m concerned it still is. This business of 115/75 is ridiculous. When mine gets or approaches being that low, I’m dizzy. Not a great feeling. My maternal grandma had low BP and she said many times there’s no worse feeling in the world. Dizzy, slightly disoriented, heart pounding, anxious after all of that (who wouldn’t be?) so I can see her point.

Someone mentioned grapefruit here earlier. I take a beta blocker (atenolol) which I would love to get away from, but I can’t have grapefruit either. I love grapefruit but haven’t had it in years. So far I’ve found no substitute for the beta blocker (for prolapsed mitral valve, insignificant).

Nice comment. Having been able to reduce my anti-hypertension drugs to an absolute minimum, my SBP has been known to go as low as 97mmHg. It can often rise from 120 to 150mmHg in a few minutes when watching and exciting game of rugby.
You might find this study of interest:
Lancet. 2000 Jan 15;355(9199):175-80.
Port S, et al Flawed Systolic blood pressure and mortality based on Framingham data..Lancet. 2000 Jan 15;355(9199):175-80.
Port S1, Demer L, Jennrich R, Walter D, Garfinkel A.Against the predictions of the linear logistic model, neither all-cause nor cardiovascular deaths depended on systolic blood pressure in a strictly increasing manner. The linear logistic model was rejected by the Framingham data. Instead, risk was independent of systolic blood pressure for all pressures lower than a threshold at the 70th percentile for a person of a given age and sex. Risk sharply increased with pressure higher than the 80th percentile. Since systolic blood pressure steadily increases with age, the threshold increases with age, but more rapidly in women than in men.
INTERPRETATION:The Framingham data contradict the concept that lower pressures imply lower risk and the idea that 140 mm Hg is a useful cut-off value for hypertension for all adults. There is an age-dependent and sex-dependent threshold for hypertension. A substantial proportion of the population who would currently be thought to be at increased risk are, therefore, at no increased risk.

Another example of Big Pharma and its KOLs astroturfing like the tobacco companies

I guess I don’t understand why so many of the commenters here are on, or were on, statins. Does nothing Dr. Kendrick have to say about cholesterol sink in with you people?? Good grief. Cholesterol is a good thing! It’s important to many bodily functions. IMPHHO, the higher it is, the better. But that’s just me . . . 🙂

The Directives (aka official guidelines) require that people with high TC are put on statins. To NOT do so could result in a negligence charge. Then given the massive astroturfing and agnotology of Big Pharma advertising, many patients actually demand it.

Sadly, yes, people will go their doctor’s office demanding something. They feel if they don’t leave with a prescription of some sort, they’ve wasted their time. That’s why the idea of a “yearly physical” is absurd. You should go to a doctor whenever you feel like you need one, but not when you feel well, for heaven’s sake.

And just because you get a script doesn’t mean you have to take it or even fill it. I suppose that depends on where you live, but here in US we still can make that choice for ourself.

Once you take it and suffer high LFT’s, as one person here related, the doctor’s don’t HAVE an answer for that, however, so then what? I prefer to avoid doctors, as much as possible. That’s the healthiest thing we can do for ourselves. Sometimes insurance forces you to do doctor visits – another reason I avoid having insurance. 🙂

I suspect many commentators found themselves here, commentating on this blog, after following a journey . . . a journey that started well enough; first being told that your cholesterol is too high – but we have a solution in the form of a little pill; then the cholesterol came down – phew I would not have a fatal heart attack like my father. Things were fine for 3 years, then the upper arms and shoulders became painful to the point I had to have help putting my jacket on, and I could hardly play the guitar. But, this was to be expected: I was getting old.

After putting up with the pain for months my wife said she had read in the newspapers that statins caused such pains. Since the weekly physiotherapy wasn’t doing any good, I had a months holiday from the statins. The pain began to disappear.

At this point the journey took on a completely different nature. If the journey up to this point was following a well beaten comfortable track, then next part was hacking cross country, into the bush and unknown territory. The journey involved reading up on the biochemistry of statins, discovering why they had manage to give me what I could now call ‘myopathy’, and with horror I discovered they were probably the cause of the new onset diabetes.

Although the statins thing was sorted, the journey did not stop there: I now needed to know what caused heart disease and heart attacks; what was actually going on with my T2D; how could I deal with it . . . and this lead down another track towards LCHF diets.

All of this journey without a compass . . . Just following one blog after another, one video presentation after another . . . until I ended up here.

. . . And I guess a good number of us arrived here because we had been looking for answers after being waylaid on our initial well beaten comforting pathway by an unforeseen crippling circumstance. Sadly we had to experience the misfortune before arriving here. I think it accounts for why so many of us have the same story to tell.

I found Dr. Kendrick’s superb writings at the THINCS web site years ago. I’ve followed him around ever since. 🙂 I have a forum, where we discuss health, alternatives, politics, share recipes, etc., and I’ve posted his whole series on heart disease there. It’s been well followed, too.

I found THINCS when I read the book The Cholesterol Myth by Uffe Ravnskov. Now I’ve read Dr. Kendrick’s books, as well. Great stuff, and always worth sharing.

Sundancer
Its really easy to understand. The people who comment here started Statins on the prescription of their doctor. They were part of the one in five who suffered drug related adverse events, they talked to their doctor who showed little sympathy. They or their significant other, started searching for an answer to the symptons. They found this site, and started reading and thinking. And stopped.
Statins are an enormous industry, doctors are in many cases overworked, and don’t have time for reflection. Inblame Collins and his ilk.

“I am overworked and have no time to think for myself” is a poor excuse for an MD who gave an oath – First, do no harm. Even with all the pressures of the medical industry – legal, professional, etc. That’s why doctors like Malcolm Kendrick, professor Goetzche and others are real gems.

I’ve been on statins for 7 years to reduce stroke risk, I realise this is nonsense. Over the last two years I’ve sufffered from insomnia, blistering nighttime headaches, and really bad tinnitus at night. Been to see GP about 5 times and apart from ruling out really sinister things, they have no solutions. Inspired by your Cholesterol Con book and by Dr Phil Hammond’s take on stains, I stopped them two weeks ago. Headaches, insomnia, ringing in ears, all gone. I feel great.

Actually I should sue you for using my first name in the title of your book, just kidding. Between you, Dr Phil Hammond (who recommends buying a dog for your health, better than any drug) and Dr Ben Goldacre, perhaps the truth will out.
Con Bradley

I’ve been on statins for 7 years to reduce stroke risk, I realise this is nonsense.

Not that it’s anything to do with lowering cholesterol, but hasn’t it been shown that taking a statin does reduce the incidence of stroke, linked ironically enough to the statin, “stiffening the arteries” by increasing plaque stability? There are better ways to reduce the risk of stroke but I’m sure that Dr Kendrick mentioned something about this a year or two ago. Apologies if I’ve mis-remembered / quoted.

That is excellent news, and perhaps your renewed vigour will enable you to take a little more exercise, that really will help in the fight against CVD! From my experience, exercise is only practical if I feel well in myself.

Not entirely nonsense. They do things as claimed but the probability that the individual patient will benefit approaches zero. In short statins are very trivially beneficial.
The problem lies with the authorities (FDA< EMA< MHRA et al) that approve this group of drugs and their FAILURE to ensure the real truth of the benefit is fully advertised.
How on the earth can a claim (treat three million, save 10,000 lives a year – effectively a 0.3% efficacy rate) ever come to be hawked around by the MSM without any control?

“Professor Peter Sever, the lead author of the study, suggested that the leaflets warning of side effects should be removed, because once a patient reads that there may be side effects, they will be far more likely to suffer from them, and report them.”

I consider that suggestion positively wicked, because had the side effects not been officially reported, I would probably never have associated the pain and additional weakness in my polio leg with the statins I had begun taking three years earlier. (In those days, I didn’t take medical advice from ‘dissident’ websites:) ). I might well have ended up in a wheelchair, still taking the statins plus assorted other medication for the pain. For all I know I might even have gone on to develop rhabdomyolysis – where the muscles start to break down so fast it overloads the kidneys – because presumably every case of (statin induced) rhabdomyolysis starts as damage to the muscles, but then gets out of control. Indeed, I thought rhabdomyolysis was an official potential rare side effect of statins, so has that been rescinded too?

As it is, well clear of statins, I have been for a hill walk and a couple of bike rides in the last few spring days.

On the other hand, this absurd development might just be the last straw that breaks the whole corrupt system. Presumably someone knows how these studies were skewed to come up with a bogus record of identical side effects for statins and placebos – and a single whistle-blower – perhaps even someone reading this blog – could wield an almighty blow for truth and justice.

These “authors/researchers” never consider the fact that the drugs they are supporting/recommending/prescribing are killing hundreds of thousands worldwide and hospitalizing millions each year. Providing they get their “cut” in terms of status and money, all is well in the world

This “paper” is the pharma equivalent of strengthening the fortifications after a few too many skirmishes. They feed this drivel to the gullible and/or complicit media whores who then gleefully “announce” ( or should I say pronounce?) that all is OK. The ignorant and all too trusting patients continue to take the poison(s).

Thank you Dr Kendrick for your sterling efforts in continuing to expose this particular medical scam. I know that you must be risking the wrath of very powerful individuals/entities and have to walk the tightrope with great skill; they will always whip up a new storm in the hope that you fall.

On a separate but relevant issue, I know that you have avoided the hornets nest called “vaccines” and totally understand why. Get ready for a new documentary on C4 tonight. I obviously cannot comment at this stage but pray that Dr Wakefield is NOT hung, drawn and quartered.

Having watched two outstanding web series recently (Vaccines Revealed & The Truth about Vaccines) as well as the “controversial” film Vaxxed, it is clear that the facts ARE getting out; reverse transcriptase, ethyl mercury, aluminium, formaldehyde, fetal and animal cell lines, poor efficacy etc etc. The media silence surrounding CDC whistleblower Dr William Thompson’s revelations is deafening.

The house of cards is beginning to shake and more pipers must be paid to play the required tunes. We shall see.

I wonder how many physicians are taking statins, hands up, speak up.
Are you prescribing them for your loved ones to protect them.
Or is it a case of don’t do as I do, do as I say.
What a cockertail( as my sister calls them) if along with fluoride they are added to water supply
Civil unrest anyone.

I too, Sylvia, have been asking for a long time if the doctors prescribing statins for their patients are also at the age when they “should” be taking statins themselves. If so, there will surely be a sudden slew of seriously ill GPs with muscle pain, memory loss, rhabdo, aggressive temper, amnesia and all the rest. But of course, statins don’t have side effects, don’t have side effects, don’t have side effects, so no doctors will report on how they might feel on statins. Except The Times doctor tried them. He came off them, and was brave enough to say so. Although he still toes the line and recommends them – for others…

You have your work cut out Dr Kendrick, but please keep going!
Don’t forget to add the PACE trial re ME/CFS to your list of scandals perpetrated on the innocent and vulnerable by “those who know best” and who can make any result mean what they want it to mean and patients be damned.

Dr Kendrick The thyroid scandal
To add to all the other scandals. Up to now I have noticed comments but have been too busy on SBP, CHF, CVD, Diabetes (1 and 2) cholesterol, TAC and good health and “managing ill health”. I just wonder how the thyroid impacts on these other conditions. From what I know on selenium it impacts on many of the above.

I didn’t dare watch the Dispatches programme for fear of destroying my TV. I understand though that sadly Dr Wakefield was ‘hung, drawn and quartered’ – the question of vaccines isn’t to do with pro- or anti-vaccines, it’s to do with safe vaccines and manipulated data to make them appear that way, whilst ignoring adverse reactions. In a similar way to statins, doctors aren’t educated that there can be reactions from a vaccine so any link is denied, no matter how obvious it is to the observer. My son developed horrendous eczema days after his first DTP/Polio vaccine – nothing else had changed so I could only put it down to that, plus that he got abscesses that appeared at each injection site during the 3 month program. Something was going on…then I heard similar stories from other mums in our area.

Some vaccine programs are also making things worse overall, not because they’re unsafe, but they’re changing the nature of disease. In the US we now see shingles in children in populations highly vaccinated against chicken pox, and the pneumococcal and meningococcal vaccines seem to skew the occurrence of those bugs that haven’t (yet) got a vaccine – as we know, “Nature abhors a vacuum” and will always find something to fill that gap!!

Hello Dr. M. Kendrick, I am angry and upset in regard to to this result by the ASCOT etc. Any medicine etc. can have side effects. Not everyone can be effected but if you take something which is alien to your body, it,s only natural your system will be effected by it or not..
In regard to statins effecting people. My husband had MND for three years and died last July. My husband was fit and healthy until he was given statins (40 mg) daily plus blood pressure tablets when he was renewing his HGV licence. This was in. 2008 and 2012 he was given a lower dose (20mg). During the higher dosage time my husband had cramps but thought this to be lack of water and after a year he developed flucations in his arms and legs. When my husband was given the lower dosage it was too late, the damage had been done. Of course there is no proof to show that it was the statins as there are so many other things to contribute to the MND. For instance genetic muscle diseases and the environment in which we live.
They give these statins too easily when diet can be a better route.
Regards VM Harkness(Mrs)

Well, there you go! I imagined it all. 3 weeks after a cardiac arrest, a stent fitted and a 80mgs Atorvastatin prescription, I was back in hospital with raised LFT’s. 1300 instead of approx 56! Cardiac Consultant say Stop the statins! Liver Consultant says you need an MRI scan, and your gallbladder removed! This is all after only 3 weeks of statins, which of course were deemed totally innocent. We’ll not mention the MRI scan they planned only three weeks after I has a metal stent inserted! (I had to point this out to the Liver Consultant myself…and he actually left the room to check…..scary!) short story is, after a whole day in hospital, I told them MULTIPLE times “I have no pain, never in my life have had any gallbladder pain and was going home!” Left after promising to return if things changed, (which of course I would have). I asked(in my then ignorance) “what about the statins?” “Oh, you must continue to take your statins, you’ve had a heart attack!”. Went home – rang Cardiac department next day to report on my “adventure”, including recommencement of statins. “oh no! Stop the statins now!” That was two years ago and never taken them since, nor ever will again. By the way my gallbladder is still intact, and has never caused me any discomfort or pain EVER. I did have the MRI scan after about 7 weeks, which showed I have two small gallstones!(not bad for age 72 from what I hear!). Over a number of weeks my LFTs slowly returned to normal. In all of this saga, never ever was it suggested that the statins might be to blame for my elevated LFTs. Therefore it was never reported. Of course Statins are “harmless”, their numerous side effects are rarely, if ever reported! God help all those people who blindly accept everything they are told by the medical profession regarding statins, and carry on “doing the right thing”. Makes my blood boil.
p.s. MK…don’t even get me started on vaccinations! After my GP practically begging me, (too many times to count) to call in for flu jabs, shingle jabs….what part of “I don’t do vaccinations!” do they not understand?
One day(Hopefully in the distant future) I will pop my clogs, and it will naturally be all my own fault for not taking my Atorvastin, and having my flu/shingle jabs, after all you’ve got to die of something, it may as well be disobedience! lol

You’re not wrong Hugh. Good grief, over the last 14 years I have certainly had all my NI contributions back, and some more! Lots (and LOTS) of praise for the NHS over the years. Sadly not finding it so recently.

Monitoring LFTs has become common practice during treatment with statins even though there is little evidence to support systematic hepatotoxicity due to statin therapy. Moreover, LFT monitoring is actively recommended by NICE who propose taking baseline LFTs and repeating at 3 and 12 months.

There are some drawbacks to this practice.

Firstly, statins induce AST and ALT and cause a rise in all subjects during the first few weeks of therapy and it would therefore be prudent to wait several months before testing.

To be honest, I have no idea whether I was having my liver functions monitored after my cardiac arrest two years ago. However, it was only when I was talking to the nurse and casually commented that my water was dark brown(no other problems). She immediately sent me for bloods and 6 hours later (8p.m. In the evening) rang me at home, and advised I needed to be admitted to hospital 8.am next morning for a full day of tests, as my LFTs were1300. Just as well I had no idea what she was talking about or I doubt I would have slept that night! The rest of the tale is as in my posting above. As for NICE recommendations, sadly I take them with a large pinch of salt. There recommendations seem to be as they state “recommendations”, as I have found in my dealings with NICE and my local health authority, regarding my “desperate” need for a half way decent Lymphoedema Service! Conspicuous by it’s absence in my area, or patchy at the most! Recommendations are exactly that…recommendations, sadly. 🤒 Utopia would be a nice place to live eh?

Antony. As I have stated many times on this blog, that I stopped statins, anti hypertensives, 3 hypoglycaemics, and all blood tests 4 years ago, against medical advice, ( after 10 years of absolute compliance, and associated poor health).I suspect I would probably have continued with the blood tests, ( just to be ‘ on the safe side’ , you get my meaning). Having been persuaded that blood tests were in order because my LFTs were ‘abnormal’, I asked “What do you think has caused that?”
“Oh…..you had probably been out on the bevy the night before the test”, was the quick response….not….”well, after 10 years of inappropriate statinisation, your liver is having a dicky fit”.
I was incensed that the phlebotomist was so willing to suggest I was a heavy drinker; to this day I have never found out the result of that last blood test. So, is my precious liver in a state of good, bad or indifferent health? Who knows? Who, other than me and my loved ones, cares? …but, here I am, alive and kicking, and without any medications whatsoever. So, I can only conclude the the abnormal LFTs have been reversed since abstaining from the toxic drugs. I think that is a fair assumption.

I was waiting for this, “The Empire Strikes Back”, and indeed it has Prof Rory Collins name on the paper. I have been giving thought over the past few days since it appeared the The Lancet, and have several queries about the study. This was a helpful article.

Yes Robert “The Empire Strikes Back”. There are too many patients asking questions. The prescribers do not need to be convinced, since they already believe that cholesterol causes CVD. The problem is to convince the patient to submit. If the patient experiences “symptoms” there are many more drugs that can be prescribed. There is no benefit from healthy people.

It’s rare to find someone like me who was put on lovastatin while in the hospital despite my warning that I cannot tolerate statins. (petite female over 65 with prior bad experience with statin) Within 10 days I discontinued the statin and 3 days later the most horrible muscular-skeletal myopathy ravaged my rib cage and back, leaving me unable to sleep or even conduct my daily affairs. Despite stopping the statin, it’s now been nearly 3-1/2 months of continuous chest crushing pain. My doctor gave me Tramadol so I could get a few hours sleep at night but of course the fear is always present that I’ve been struck down for life by a statin side effect even AFTER being off the statin. The medical profession is deaf to cries for help – how many millions of us does it take for someone to listen?

Sever wants all mention of side-effects to be removed from the packaging. Rather, I would have in block capitals, coloured red and underlined the words: “There is no benefit in taking statins for women over 60”

!2 months ago I wrote an assignment for my PGCert in Advanced Practice that were case studies of patients presenting with acute or acute on chronic problems that could be exacerbated by their medication(s). One of my case studies was a patient presenting with hyperglycaemia who had relatively recently started on a statin. The person marking the work commented ‘interesting’ when I suggested the statin COULD have caused the hyperglycaemia in the patient who may have been susceptible as there was a familial history of Type 2 DM; when I stated in the work that the authors of a paper debunking the possible link between statins and hyperglycaemia were sponsored by the manufacturers of the ‘best selling’ statin, the comment from the marker was ‘very interesting’. I always look to see if the authors have any link to manufacturers of the subject being referred to in the paper. If a specific name of a drug is given then that immediately raises questions about impartiality on the part of the authors/researchers. Also aren’t many statins now coming to the end of their patent period and thus no longer the cash cows for the pharmaceutical companies? Perhaps we’ll see IsoXXXstatin which is a slight reformulation of XXXstatin, but is basically the same drug, however is subject to a new patent application.

I tried to understand this study. It was inherently unethical and irresponsible, because its agenda was to discourage side-effect reporting, or if not its effect will be just that.
So it needed to be clear – it wasn’t clear at all.
It needed to be representative. To do that, it needed to collect baseline data about people who might have been in the study but weren’t – the people who didn’t respond to the invites, the people who were excluded, and the people who dropped out.
It may be there, but I can’t find it.
What I can find is that a high % of people in all arms of the study had already been on lipid lowering medicines. Other lipid lowering meds actually cause similar side effects to statins, so that would have screened out a lot of people who wouldn’t want to repeat the experience.
But also, the % of people who formerly took lipid lowering meds is highest in the arms with most reported side effects. So there can also be an exposure effect, the longer people are exposed to lipid lowering (those with immediate SFX having been screened out) the more likely it is that they will develop SFX. There’s no evidence that this possibility was controlled for, even though it seems perfectly obvious from the study design that the unblinded arm were on statins for longer than the blinded arm. (one of the few things that is obvious).
Atorvastatin is a water-soluble statin so the low incidence of cognitive effects says nothing about the effects of fat-soluble statins like Lipitor, which are the drugs associated with these problems in adverse events reporting.
The authors don’t mention this obvious fact.
This is p-hacking a study of a low-dose intervention, for atorvastatin only, over 10 years after the fact to try to discredit people reporting side effects now from the entire range of statins and dosage.
as I said, it’s unethical to propose such a thing unless you’re proposing the perfect trial of it, which this is not.

May I suggest that as this “banning side effects from the data insert” is so much to the benefit of Big Pharma that it might well have been promoted by them along with financial inducements. It is also clear proof that many medics recognize “side effects” is euphemism for adverse effects but want to pretend they are something else.

Positive or negative side effects? It depends – I worked in a private GP’s practice for a while where someone with alopecia was prescribed a drug normally used for some other condition, but had the side effect ‘hirsutism’!

My dad is fit and active being a dog walker and a once a week golfer – he hits 80 (age, not strokes per round of golf) this year. A few years ago he started to experience muscle pains which, at times, were severe to such an extent that he had to curtail some dog walks, along with taking a stick, and his future as golfer looked finished. He was also experiencing some degree of problems with his memory. Predictably this was all put down to ageing process. I started looking into how I might help alleviate his problems with supplements or whatever. At this point if I’d ever heard of ‘statin’, I’d have had my head buried in the sand (I ‘knew’ of cholesterol and that saturated fat would kill you). Cutting a long story short, I found out that my dad had been put on statins a few months earlier and put my hat on this having resulted in the muscle pains and memory problems – I don’t have to tell anyone on here how ‘easy*’ it is to find out how bad statins can be in terms of side effects (* not meant in any menial way as I know who confusing the whole ‘shooting’ game is when the likes of Prof. Collins is interview in one of those Michael Mosley TV programmes – I’d like to play a shooting game with Prof. Collins). My analysis was that my dad should stop statins with immediate effect – fortunately he will listen to me. Within a short time, his muscle problems were history and his short term memory was back – he is still walking the dog twice a day and playing golf. At the time I had to contend with a sibling who thought I was writing my dad’s death note.
[A side story is that, a year or so later, a neighbour of my dad, who is a good few years younger, mentioned to the very same sibling that he was suffering from memory problems and who questioned if he was on statins. On getting the affirmative it was suggested that he quit statins, my sibling citing my dad as an example. The neighbour was too scared to quit but was receptive to switching statin and to a lower dose – don’t know from what to what. End result – his memory improved and to such an extent that a while later he recited the story back to my sibling without having any recollection that it was my sibling who’d provided the advice for the switch in the first place.] [There are more success stories but I won’t extend this diversion.]
Back to my dad, last year on a visit, I checked the medicine cupboard and there was a packet of statins in there (he’d had them only for a couple of days). I went nuts and he binned them there and then. I’m annoyed by a system that constantly pushes them – my dad is one of the ‘most’ people who would take anything a doctor prescribed without question.

Heard you on the radio…. my side effects were certainly not imagined – unable to raise my arms, no strength in arms/legs, unable to pick dropped things up, could’nt do up bra, loads aches etc.. stopped statns took almost a year to eventually get all side effects gone! Fine now !

I worked it out ages ago, Dr Kendrick. If we were all to live to a ripe old age there will not be enough money in the pot to pay our pensions and with fewer people smoke nowdays death by lung cancer has decreased so other types of illness have to be encouraged to make sure the pharmaceuticals rake in the dosh and to make sure that we all kick the bucket before we reach a ripe old age. Thanks to obesity, diabetes, statins and whatever else, the predicted rise in the population of people over 80 will not happen… and this will substantially reduce the pensions bill bonne nuit Lor

eissen
If my belief that low cholesterol (Lorin H. Alzheimer’s Solved), statins (Solomon,A. – Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2009;28(1):75-80. ) and carbohydrates(European Journal of Internal Medicine 22 (2011) 134-140) are associated along with other factors AD (Alzheimer’s Disease)
is correct there is going to be a huge medical bill due this disease (AD/PD 2009 – Are We Experiencing an Alzheimer’s Epidemic? http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/590106)

The Solomon paper (Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2009;28(1):75-80.) is significant in that it fails to consider the effect of cholesterol lowering therapy after diagnosis of high TC and the American paranoia in demanding treatment. Thus TC levels greater than 239 mg/dl would almost certainly be treated (statins post-1987 would be the drug of choice). Solomon provides the numbers so anyone can do the statistics on the grounds of statin treatment (At least 80% are statin tolerant – 98% if you believe Prof. Dr. Sir Rory Collins)

I also have my suspicions that we are being bumped off slowly but surely before we get to draw our pensions! And in the meantime, those who do get adverse reactions from drugs and vaccines will keep the dosh trickling in to Big Pharma and all their cronies who are advising (or in) the government and public health authorities…

Not wishing to hijack this thread but following on from an earlier comment about the Channel 4 (UK) programme about Dr Wakefield / Donald Trump / vaccines on UK TV last night, I was really looking forward to the programme as I thought it might actually have some unbiased reporting. I really must learn to stop being so naive!

Paraphrasing the closing comments of the Channel 4 “investigator”, she said that the frequency of mumps was going through the roof in Texas, the state where Dr Wakefield now lives in the US, obviously trying to blame Dr Wakefield for influencing parents not to have their kids vaccinated, hence the increase in mumps infections. Strong implication that it was all Dr Wakefield’s fault. Notwithstanding that mumps in kids is generally a relatively mild, short lived illness, what she didn’t say was that the percentage of kids vaccinated in Texas is around 98-99% (MMR) and therefore the majority of kids getting mumps had been previously vaccinated against the disease!

Across the nation, most mumps cases are occurring among people who have been vaccinated, according to the CDC, and these outbreaks are not due to low vaccination rates. For example, in Texas, 97.6% of kindergarten-age children have received two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, Van Deusen said, while 98.7% of seventh-graders have.

It took me seconds to discover the facts about the increase in mumps cases / vaccinations in Texas / The US yet all Channel 4 could do was to hound Dr Wakefield. The conclusion should have been that the vaccine doesn’t confer true protection but the implication given was that it was all Dr Wakefield’s fault and he was, “putting children at risk”. So much for “investigative journalism”.

It was the same way with whooping cough a few years ago, in the State of Washington. The ones who’d been vaccinated were the ones getting it and the ones spreading it. Too many people worship the religion of vaccines. Too many people think pediatricians are necessary. A good GP should always be able to do what a pediatrician can do otherwise they should lose their medical license, IMO.

“There are two government programs that supposedly monitor the safety of Vaccines in the US.

(1) The first is an industry joke, a voluntary report called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

Why is it a joke? Because pediatricians who jam seven to nine Made-in-China vaccines into a small child at one time NEVER want to turn themselves in for that 108 degree fever, and the beginnings of autism, they caused. They’d be drummed out of the pediatrician clique – and those trips to Europe paid for by big Pharma would quit. They can come up with endless reasons why they will NOT file a VAERS report – and they simply do NOT file them.

But it is the second system that is most important…

(2) The second system is called the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and it is an entirely different thing – and the data collected is totally TOP SECRET. Every possible trick is used to hide this data, including, I’m told, contracting out the storage of the twenty-seven years of data to companies in foreign countries so it cannot be subpoenaed by lawyers involved in vaccine litigation.

Got that?

If there is no problem with vaccines why can’t Independent Investigators look at that twenty-seven years of data recording the health records of MILLIONS of American children after they were vaccinated with each, and every, CHILDHOOD VACCINE from January of 1991 to the present?”

What can’t be hidden is the fact that so far Vaccine Injury Fund in the US has paid out over $3.5 BILLION in compensation to parents of vaccine injured children. And the fact that in 2011 US Supreme Court ruled vaccines to be “unavoidably unsafe”. Not because the Supreme Court are courageous fighters for truth but to shield pharma from future lawsuits…

Cathy Newman remarked at the end of the programme that there was nothing fake about the recently announced outbreak of mumps in Wakefield’s adopted home state of Texas. The strong implication was that the outbreak was the fault of Dr Wakefield influencing parents not to vaccinate, particularly in Texas. However, the CDC reports that the MMR vaccination rate in Texas is about 98-99%. Therefore, the vast, vast (if not all) majority of children becoming ill with mumps HAVE been vaccinated. The question should therefore be: why, despite an almost 100% vaccination rate in Texas, is there an outbreak of mumps? The answer clearly has to be that the MMR vaccination does not confer true protection against mumps.

“Across the nation, most mumps cases are occurring among people who have been vaccinated, according to the CDC, and these outbreaks are not due to low vaccination rates. For example, in Texas, 97.6% of kindergarten-age children have received two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, Van Deusen said, while 98.7% of seventh-graders have.”

This should be basic journalism and the result of an enquiring journalistic mind. Cathy Newman should be questioning why, despite an almost 100% vaccination rate is there an outbreak of a disease that the vaccine is supposed to protect against? Dr Wakefield, whether he’s right or wrong cannot be responsible for this outbreak. How about Cathy Newman making another programme and this time asking some actually pertinent questions of the vaccine manufacturers’ / proponent doctors as to why the MMR is proving ineffective against a disease it’s supposed to protect against rather than making unjustifiable complaints against an individual doctor?

The situation is if anything worse with pertussis – the vaccine barely works at all.
In fact it may worsen risk, because doctors are slow to diagnose these diseases in vaccinated populations, and quarantine and antibiotics need to be used early in pertussis infections to be effective.
However, vaccination rates probably don’t include adult booster shots, and you’re not going to get herd immunity against any disease, even if a vaccine sort-of works, unless you vaccinate ALL adults regularly enough, as well as children.
And this would be so politically unpopular that it will never happen unless a much more lethal infection emerges.

The GMC subcommittee that struck Dr Wakefield off the register, was chaired by a doctor, who, after the strike off, reputedly left to address a Big Pharma sponsored meeting to praise the MMR vaccine. Now if that was the case, it is clearly a gross conflict of interest.

Also most human vaccines are never tested by RCT and direct physical challenge in the way animal vaccines are (generally they actually work).

The actual testing process involves testing for antibodies. From my own experience antibodies are not necessarily immunebodies. Incidentally Merck is currently in trouble in court as a consequence of whistleblowers claiming data manipulation and falsification with regard to the MMR vaccine that they manufacture. Furthermore, the US CDC apparently ran a study in little black boys to prove that MMR did not cause autism. Their publication in fact supported that view until a whistleblower (A research doc involved) gave the game away. MMR in this study did cause autism.

Again this shows that Big Pharma is absolutely shameless in its attempt to pervert medical research

Dr Kendrick is very wise to keep very clear of the subject. Luckily the GMC can do nothing to me.

The BGH, which happens not to be the German supreme court, but is the highers court in civil disputes, simply refused to order the Suttgart court to revisit its ruling that slapped off someone who had claimed the 100 k€ prize. They will usually not change rulings but rather send them back for reassessment in the previous instance if they find procedural errors, which in this case they did not.

The Stuttgart court simply ruled that the papers submitted did not meet Lanka’s requirement of rigorous scientific proof, and that . Those papers were based on DNA (resp. RNA) sequencing but lacked controls.

It is interesting to note that the CDC has TEM mug shots of the virus:

How did they arrive at that conclusion? Probably the old school way. Take samples from a severely sick child and compare to samples taken before the kid got sick or long after it got well again. If you do that with many sick kids, and what you find always only in the sick kids always looks the same and looks like a virus, talks like a virus etc, it probably is. Proof enough? Do you still need to isolate the DNA of the virus?

Eric
Many thanks for the link. I posted the URL to illustrate how messy this virus vaccine is. Having had measles (and the German variation) many decades ago when it was considered a virus by nearly everyone, I was highly surprised by this article.

Incidentally, your link (using google chrome also provided a readable translation from which I took the following quote:If I do not have an original source, it irritates me. If I am reading a message several times, whether this is now a fact claim (which I can possibly check by specified sources) or whether the author only his very personal opinion and interpretation of There is usually no message, which I forward to third parties!
Me Too

This is a philosophy that is at the very core of science and is so frequently ignored, particularly by medical journalists

Mike, glad you liked the link. Let me try my hand at the translation. The entry was apparently first posted when the author was forwarded news articles several times that claimed that the BGH court had ruled a measles virus did not exist. Apparently, they all went back to Lanka’s press release, that was misleading at best. The author then found this very press release.

The paragraph you quoted translates at:
“If the original source is not referenced, this irritates me. If, in the course of reading a news item, I keep asking myself over and over again whether this is a statement of facts (that I could potentially verify if sources were referenced) or with the author is simply expressing his personal opinion or interpretation, then this piece should not be considered news, and I refrain from forwarding it.”

The blog entry was then updated several times as the full text of the BGH (federal court) and OLG (state court of appeals) Stuttgart decicisions became available. He makes it very clear that the juggement of the OLG simply means that the conditions of the prize were not met, and that the BGH could find no error of procedure. He also says that the judges did not fully consider the conflicting expertises, as the last thing they wanted were warring experts in court which would probably not be good for their further careers. Myself, I am more relaxed about this. Where would we get if judges got to decide over scientific truth? So in my eyes, the decisions reflects wisdom and judicial restraint.

He trained as a dairy specialist and later apparently earned a degree in computer science (which is not so unsual, just think of Matthias Müller who trained as a tool maker at the production chain, and after completing his apprenticeship, tested for A-level equivalency, studied computer science and is CEO of VW today). He is also, as of December, speaker for public health policy of a newly founded political party that does not even have its own wikipedia entry…

The programme is a response to many current things: the film “Vaxxed” which calls into question vaccine safety (MMR, in this case) due to a whistleblower (a senior CDC vaccine researcher), Donald Trump’s concern about vaccine safety and his plan to have an independent committee look into it, Robert F Kennedy’s work involving mercury in vaccines (still present in ‘trace amounts’ which are significant when they accumulate or are in the presence of aluminium salts) and the recent docu-series “Vaccines Revealed” and “The Truth about Vaccines”.

They are terrified that people are no longer going to trust the vaccine program and realise that the whole business is full of corruption. As we can see, vaccines don’t always confer immunity and/or they don’t last for as long as hoped. So measles outbreaks are occurring in infants because vaccine-induced immunity isn’t passed onto the neonate, and older people who have been vaccinated because their ‘protection’ has waned. Many people are starting to believe that actually messing with nature can backfire in ways that were never predicted (or maybe they were, by the pharmaceutical companies?)

Why won’t pharma do a trial of vaccinated and unvaccinated children to see how much autism and other conditions there is in the two communities? There are unvaccinated communities in the U.S., such as the Amish, who are said to have incredibly small numbers of autistic children and have similarly low rates of many other conditions.

If pharma was really confident about vaccines, they’d be doing these studies, but they never will because they already know what the result would be.

I was so dismayed to see the screaming headlines. My experience of side effects was very real and very unpleasant and it wasn’t until I ran out of the beastly things that I realised how badly I was being affected. When I started taking them again the symptoms returned. I experimented three times, stopping and starting to be absolutely sure and then I stopped. Actually, I never read the insert until I stopped and then, surprise, surprise, I found listed the effects I’d experienced. In addition I read that they were not suitable for women or for those over ..was it 60 or 65? ….either way I fitted the bill. In the almost four years since I stopped I haven’t had as much as a sniffle or a sore throat, and I’m happy with my 7.3 thank you very much. The motor neuropathy in my feet is now a permanent fixture, unfortunately but I would do everything I could to persuade anyone NOT to take statins. The screaming headlines did nothing to help my crusade.
Have they no shame?

This is all about the total anti-oxidant capacity (TAC) of blood and good health

On average diabetics are well below average. Personally I have been tested 3 time; each time above the normal healthy mode. Dr Robert Knight is colleague from 50 years ago and both he and Dr Jan are friends; ie I have a conflict of interest but I sincerely believe that their work is genuinely directed at achieving good health rather than managing ill health.

Just back from seeing the GP. At the end of the consult, I threw in “and now we are suppposed to believe that statins have no side effects” His response “They have terrible side effects. There is no drug that doesn’t have side effects.”
I’m happy.

Not sure if this has been posted here before, but it’s a good bit of cholesterol fun, so I thought you would all appreciate the potential for a reverse con opportunity…http://cholesterolcode.com/extreme-cholesterol-drop-experiment/
This chap (Dave Feldman) is an engineer who seems to have worked out a method for a quick change to his cholesterol. It seems reasonably robust, and as life is one continual experiment I thought I would give his protocol a go. Being fairly lazy I opted for his easiest protocol of 3 days only:
3.5 days before I had a blood test for my regular diabetes hba1c and cholesterol tests I ate 5000 calories of fat each day (not easy actually – very satiating) and then stopped eating for 13 hours, then had the blood test. My total cholesterol dropped from 6.3 to 5.2. (Background : I am off all meds – my late onset Type 1 diabetes is controlled by diet alone…. LCHF) I find it fascinating that a) Cholesterol can be changed so rapidly and b) that eating huge amounts of fat facilitates a drop.
Thinking this through, this could be used to deliberately mislead the establishment; In America I believe insurance premiums increase with higher cholesterol results. The whole cholesterol con would surely collapse if the public discover a way to drop their levels with minimal effort. It wouldn’t take long for insurance companies to abandon cholesterol as a useful marker once its hitting their profits.

Very interesting! I note that on the page you linked, he recommends avoding coconut and MCT oils, and on the page describing his talk, he said he was constantly snacking peanut butter and Adapt bars. Peanut oil contains about 1/3 lineoleic acid, and most commercial peanut butters have 10 – 20% of sunflower, corn or other high PUFA oil added. I wasn’t able to find the fat breakdown of Adapt bars. One bar contains 9 g of fat, which consists magically of 0% each of sat, mono- and polyunsatured fat.

So I believe what he is doing is ingesting large quantities of PUFA, which oxidize his LDL, causing the liver to crank up receptors which take up LDL from the blood stream. Masterjohn has the complete mechanics of how PUFA lower cholesterol somewhere, can’t find it right now.

Would be interesting to see what the folks who replicated his results ate…

Hi Eric
I also was bemused by his recommendation that MCT oils not be used.
I picked up the following from one of his videos – it may provide some explanation??. . .

Theory: Chylomicrons transport fats directly from gut into the blood stream and around the body. They deliver up their payload to the cells of the body, bypassing the liver. He concludes that the body seems to ‘sense’ fat storage in a 3 day window . . . If the body detects a lot of fat from the chylomicrons in that 3 day window (how??) it down-regulates VLDL, so TC goes down.

After your note I had a look at the Xbrain web site . . . fan of the MTC oils . . . http://www.xbrain.co.uk/mct-oil . . . and they suggest short change fatty acid oils easily pass through the intestines into the blood portal system . . . they are not packaged into chylomicrons, but go directly to the liver. In the liver they are metabolised quickly . . (into ketones??); They increase energy utilisation and at the same time slow down fat storage.

So if Dave’s idea about the body sensing “chylomicron fat transport” is correct then MCT fats, which are not involved in the transport, need to be discounted if his fat/TC inverse correlation is to hold.

A great post bringing this up . . . I have came across Dave Feldman in a Breckenridge 2017 video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZu52duIqno. I haven’t watch the video you mentioned – it must have the same sort of stuff as the Breckenridge one. The one I watched explained how he turned his life, as you say, into a continual experiment . . . But I must mention that it has a very poignant story: Jill’s story – well worth watching.

For those who have not yet seen the videos . . . His basic observation is that the more fat you eat the lower your total cholesterol. He worked this out by keeping meticulous records of his macronutrients and recording his ‘bloods’, including his TC levels. He worked out that if he took the average of 3 days fat intake and plotted it on graph with the TC level then they followed an inverted patten which correlated pretty well – in other words: 3 day average fat intake goes up => TC goes down and vice versa . (Pearson coeff = -0.8053.)

He would like lots of people to do one of various protocols.
(1) three and half day: high fat (say 5000 kcals) for three days then blood test
(compare TC with your last previous readings to see if there is a drop)
(2) six and half days: low fat 3 days then blood test then after the blood test start 3 days of high fat diet then second blood test . . . this give you 2 fat data points and 2 corresponding TC points.
(3) 10 and half days and 4 blood tests This is more complicated and allows the number of LDL particles to be related to fat intake . . . but your blood test has to give the LDL-P for this to be of any use . . . Not something we get in our local NHS hospital labs.

When you have done this he exhorts you to send him the data.

Theory: Chylomicrons transport fats directly from gut into the blood stream and around the body. They deliver up their payload to the cells of the body, bypassing the liver. He concludes that the body seems to ‘look’ at fat storage in a 3 day window . . . If the body detects a lot of fat from the chylomicrons in that window (how?) it down-regulates VLDL, so TC goes down.

Certainly worked for you Neil. I am wondering about trying it out on my doctor when the next round of blood tests looms . . . Do I shock him by running a very low fat diet for 3 days or do I shock him in another way by trying the 5000 kcal for 3 days?

Let me see: 2000 kcals of olive oil in homemade yummy mayonnaise (no problem)
Just over one and half 250g bags of macadamia nuts . . a bit of pacing required but do-able.

It is possible to do blinded trials on one person or oneself. In the case of mysterious severe adverse effects from statins, one could randomly take pill A or pill B (one a statin, one a placebo) for a month and then switch. I’d bet there would be no difference and probably no adverse effect. This is based on experience in psychological research.

I am interested why you believe that severe adverse effects from statin are mysterious? You may recall that Cerivastatin was withdrawn from the market for killing people from the well understood adverse effect of rhabdomyolysis. An effect that all statins have, on some people. The adverse effects are not mysterious, nor their mechanisms, which are well understood – including the 80% increase in risk of type II diabetes (Of course you would not notice this, because as type II diabetes creates no immediate symptoms). The only ‘mystery’ here is the number of people who actually suffer from adverse effect. Anyway, an interesting, and I believe revealing, choice of a word.

I don’t mean that rhabdomyolysis from statins isn’t real. I mean that the principal adverse effect–muscle pain in the absence of rhabdomyolysis or objective laboratory explanations–should be tested in single individuals with a controlled trial. Many things that seem real are revealed to be false under the scrutiny of an unbiased controlled trial. The fact that such adverse effects were rare in controlled trials but common in open usage suggests we do this. And, yes, I realize the large controlled trials for statins are questionable due to the taint of industry sponsorship.

DALLAS, TX — In a large observational study of insured individuals in the military and their family members, statin use was associated with increased odds of having a back disorder, including spondylosis, intervertebral disc disorders, herniated discs, and spinal stenosis[1].
Specifically, for every 17 individuals who were prescribed a statin, one person had a diagnosed back disorder, in this study published online May 1, 2017 as a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine.
“Some of these adverse effects [from statins] can greatly impact day-to-day quality of life for our patients,” especially in those who are physically active, lead author Dr Una E Makris (VA North Texas Health Care System and UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas) told heartwire from Medscape in an email. “We hope that musculoskeletal adverse events will be part of the patient-provider discussion on the risk/benefit ratio” of these drugs. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/879387?nlid=114770_4441&src=wnl_dne_170509_mscpedit&uac=139282MV&impID=1344125&faf=1

They are not just questionable. They are rubbish. There are numerous ways to minimize reporting AEs – wash out periods, changing reporting criteria, etc. “Bad Pharma” by Ben Goldacre goes into detail, as do books by Marcia Angell.

Compare this 1/17 disbenefit with the 1/300 p.a. of lives saved – 17 times more suffer from this one condition than are saved. Even over 5 years of statin “life saving” four times more suffer than are saved. Add in all the other adverse reaction types and the damage to benefit ratio increases substantially.

And if the side effects don’t start until the
drug is titrated up to a certain level, which
may take 3 to 6 months or longer, what then?
Your premise is correct. We’d like to think
that the trials do this fairly, but they
apparently don’t. You have more faith in
the process than I.

By chance, I came close to performing the very experiment you describe on myself.

I had taken Simvastatin for 3 years without obvious problems, and I was very positive about taking such a ‘life extending’ pill. Yes, I knew that statins were said to cause ‘muscle aches’ in some people, but I simply didn’t believe that described the problems I was having, which involved severe cramps in one leg, previously weakened by polio. Also, I took an attitude similar to yours – that drug side effects were mostly imagined. The only reason I stopped the pills, was that I thought they might exacerbate whatever had gone wrong with me (My doctor and I suspected I had Post Polio Syndrome).

Thus I stopped Simvastatin, found that whatever had been wrong with me was happily fading, so started taking Simvastatin again, and that cycle repeated 3 times.

Obviously, if I had even suspected that Simvastatin was responsible for the total problem, I’d have stopped instantly – I was not trying to do experiments on my body!

Once I finally stopped, the problems seems to fall away roughly exponentially. I still remember how startled I was when I realised the pattern!

Professor Peter Sever’s advice would be truly comical if it were not so questionable. If I take a statin and get an adverse effect, I could look on the packaging and find no sign that it might be the statin making me ill.

And thus the blame is deflected. I know – it must be just me getting old. Or I’m allergic to some (unknown) thing. Or something I’m eating. Or maybe it’s the weather (or something like that). It can’t be the statin because it would have said something on the packaging.9

Thus could the adverse effects continue without the true culprits emerging. And by culprits I mean not the chemicals, which are but inanimate molecules. I mean the peddlars and publicists of these dangerous substances.

There is a US data base that we used to access to establish Toxicities of chemicals (LD50s, carcinogenicities, mutagenicities etc.) in various species called RTECS – very useful. Unfortunately it is not “Open Access”. It is a requirement of drug authorization to provide this sort of data for the assessors

The Great Cholesterol Myth – why lowering your cholesterol won’t prevent heart disease.
Jonny Bowden and Stephen Sinatra published 2012.
This is a well researched book, well worth reading. It is authoratative quoting many peer review journals and is written by a PhD nutritionist and a Cardiac specialist.

I’d be a little careful about Dr. Sinatra. He thinks beta blockers are wonderful.

I’m not as sure of that as he is. Does he actually TAKE them or just prescribe them, that’s my question. He studies them, so he says, and yet never once mentions that beta blockers are fully responsible for raised LFT’s. So, if beta blockers do both good and bad at the same time, how is a patient to decipher what is the best course of action to take for THEIR situation? If I could find a substitute for beta blockers, I’d ditch mine (after almost 30 years) and use the substitute. I take mine for a pounding heart which is a results of prolapsed mitral valve which began as a murmur of pregnancy and never dissipated like they told me it would. Now, the medical cartel has had a 30 year patient . . .

Someone recently posted info here about using potassium powder but I cannot seem to find the comment (whoever it was had included a link, if I remember correctly). Could someone please repost that link? I’d appreciate any info on slowly using potassium, built up to higher doses, and weaning off the beta blocker if that’s a possibility.

Salt alert:
No, extra salt does not result in extra water intake from thirst.
The water that is needed to pee out the extra comes from breaking down body fat (and muscle).
That requires a bit extra energy, which is provided for by making you more hungry.
Well, that’s different!

I read the paper which steered itself around the salt causes high blood pressure miraculously. Mainly by being almost incomprehensible. But hey, the experts were wrong about everything to do with salt intake and diuresis, and kidney function, but they were still right, its bad for you – phew. Glad they cleared that one up.

Now is there any truth in the statement that high glucocorticoid levels are linked to such conditions as osteoporosis, muscle loss, Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic problems?

if high salt -> high glucocorticoid AND high salt -> less of above problems, it should follow that above statement is not true. Maybe the solution is that whatever increase salt achieves is still in the good range of the U-curve, so we need not worry about these hypothetical problems?

Myself, I don’t skimp on salt, but after binging on delicious Normandy or Brittany butter with sea salt and baguette (salty, too) for 2 – 3 days in a row, I usually get nauseated and have a nasty salty taste that lasts for about two days. Other than that, I have not had any ill effects.

A friend eats almost inane amounts of salt. He will add a whole heaped teaspoon of salt to a liberally salted meal, and cover a buttered slice of bread with a closed layer of salt. It’s so bad we switch our fleur de sel for supermarket salt when he visits because he’ll go through a whole 100 g container in two days. He’s been doing that for ages and is slim and healthy as can be.

Dr. Kendrick,
This study is a very different take on Establishment salt ideas. But still wrong?
Are ALL studies tainted (except for Ravnskov, those two French guys, Taubes, et al?
This is not a blanket rejection?? Particulars of your logic?
(Just askin’.)

I don’t reject the study, I simply reject the fact that – despite this study – the mainstream will not in any way change their mind on salt. To quote the ‘experts’ (sic) We were wrong, actually although we were wrong we are still right – even if it was for the wrong reasons. You have to love the logic. I think the study itself was very important, and contradicts (almost) everything we have been told about the effect of salt intake on osmotic diuresis. But this makes no difference to the advice given – eat less salt.

Are all studies tainted? Of course they are. All studies are biased – to some degree or other. The question is – at what point does the bias reach a level where the findings cannot be relied upon. On that point, tricky.

Back in 2011, there was a Scientific American article on salt intake, which included some mortality data that indicated (if I remember correctly because unfortunately the article is now behind a pay-wall) that those that ate the most salt lived slightly longer than those that ate less.

My memory was right – here is the quote:
Studies that have explored the direct relationship between salt and heart disease have not fared much better. Among them, a 2006 American Journal of Medicine study compared the reported daily sodium intakes of 78 million Americans to their risk of dying from heart disease over the course of 14 years. It found that the more sodium people ate, the less likely they were to die from heart disease. And a 2007 study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology followed 1,500 older people for five years and found no association between urinary sodium levels and the risk of coronary vascular disease or death. For every study that suggests that salt is unhealthy, another does not.

Why – oh why do none of these newspaper articles join up a few of the dots in medical stories!

The gobbly-gook of the official medical establishment is starting to unravel at the seams.

I found another example in Dr R. Kraft’s book “ Diabetes epidemic and you. to quoteFinal Question: SHOULD EVERYONE BE TESTED? (for fasting insulin blood level)
Final Answer: ABSOLUTELY NOT! ONLY THOSE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR FUTURE!
To which I would add “<or those national medical establishments who are more concerned about the status and reputation of their X-spurts than the health of their patients“

Salt does not make people drink more, instead it cranks up fat burning, and water is produced from the hydrogen in the fats (I can see how a camel might need to this, but humans or mice in ready supply of water?).

“Still, Dr. Titze said he would not advise eating a lot of salt to lose weight. If his results are correct, more salt will make you hungrier in the long run, so you would have to be sure you did not eat more food to make up for the extra calories burned.

And, Dr. Titze said, high glucocorticoid levels are linked to such conditions as osteoporosis, muscle loss, Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic problems.” (is he saying this in order not to alienenate the establishment?)

Sure enough, someone from Havard medical school weighs in to say that they knew all along that salt is bad for you, even if they were wrong about the reasons:
“She and others have not abandoned their conviction that high-salt diets can raise blood pressure in some people.

But now, Dr. Hoenig said, “I suspect that when it comes to the adverse effects of high sodium intake, we are right for all the wrong reasons.”

My father in law has religiously taken his statins since a “cardiac event” many many years ago. He has now been diagnosed with dementia, he has difficulty speaking, he walks like he has Parkinson’s disease, he shouts at his wife if he doesn’t get his own way. He has just informed me he has run out of his statins, only one tablet left! He is unable to request a repeat prescription, my mother in law usually takes care of it but she is ill.
Mmmmm…………what to do🤔?

My mother, aged 92, suffering from severe Alzheimer’s and in a care home, had a heart attack. Taken to hospital and placed on the cardiac unit. She was there for 10 days, during which time she was given her Alzheimer’s med, AND believe it or not, a statin!(never taken them before) “Why?” I asked. “Because EVERYONE ONE THIS WARD GETS A STATIN!” Seems they won’t even let you die in peace anymore.

Mike…You are right! Although I’m not sure they still exist. I used to be a member of such a patient group, after my breast cancer treatment 13 years ago. I wanted to change the world(yesterday). After two years of sheer frustration, I resigned. That’s why I really respect those who can stick at for years, through thick and thin, and I don’t say this lightly.(MK for instance) In my mothers case, I just smiled( to myself) and decided that taking a statin in her case was the least of all our worries! After seven years of Alzheimer’s, and finally a heart attack, it wasn’t about to kill her! We had her transferred to geriatrics and she died peacefully, in a comfortable, caring environment. Two sides to every coin eh?

Two recent studies underscore concerns that science has been abandoned in order to promote Big Pharma’s pro-vaccine agenda.

Editor’s note (5/9/2017):Within hours of publishing this article, we learned of reports that the Journal of Translational Science has retracted these studies. We will keep you updated as we work to confirm these reports and discern the reason for the retraction

Another example interference in medical science by someone and the messiness of vaccination studies . Just cannot believe anyone!

Help please.
I am back into my I LOVE CHOLESTEROL T-shirts. I don’t often get the opportunity to say a lot to people (who include medical practitioners) who say, “Of course, there’s good and bad cholesterol.”
What would be your concise response?

I am not sure this recycling is as significant as you suggest. First, there is no free cholesterol in blood plasma, so I assume you referring to LDLc. Do a thought experiment here. Let’s have a special agent in the blood stream that picks out a LDL particle when it passes and replaces it with an identical new one. So particle one would not be circulating too long, but the blood situation would seem to be no different. So, the only issue is concentration. With a certain probability of damage to LDL higher concentration mean more absolute damaged LDL. Of course people with familial hypercholesterolemia have exactly this situation, and the concentration does not seem to be related to CVD risk, rather, for some, the gene error also seems to create more clotting factor that does cause a greater risk of CVD.
I think there is too much loose usage of terminology in the LDL/CVD discussions with first line correlations being assumed to be causal. I have felt for a long time that ‘bad cholesterol’ has been allowed continue in use for marketing purposes.

Robert, I sympathise with your dislike of the ‘bad cholesterol’ label, but J. Public has been weaned on this idea . . . It’s going to be hard to change.

On the issue of LDL-C recycling having a relevance to atherosclerosis. A number of times I have come across the notion that ‘super small’/damaged LDL particles are not able to be transported into hepatocytes via the LDL receptors . . . so they keep circulating the veins and arteries until they are picked up by macrophages via receptors like CD36 for oxidised LDL, or even the CD36 receptors on epithelial cells (other receptors are available) – surely precipitating/ sustaining inflammatory processes. I think the idea is that damage to the LDL particles is progressive, and that at a certain point they become too damaged to successfully interact with the LDL receptor and will not be recycled.

I agree with Antony Sanderson on the LDLc issue he mentions. Sometimes brain fatigue sets in! The issue here is why there are these particles and why they get damaged, and I suspect that sugar/fructose & polyunsaturated oils are part of that problem.

Randall
Thanks for the link. This confirms my view on meta-analyses, Decide what you want to prove then set your selection criteria and bingo another paper.
Does it really take 938,465 statistical units to prove that milk is good for you?

Honest to goodness, people are so taken in. A neighbour told me today as if she was walking blindfold on a tightrope over the Niagara Falls, that she sometimes eats cheese. How very daring. How very sad,

We appreciate you taking the time to contact us with your feedback, and have read of your feedback at the content of this programme. We take your concerns very seriously, and have forwarded them for the attention of the programme makers, to ensure they are taken into consideration for any subsequent programming there may be on this topic.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us here at Channel 4 and for your interest in our programming.

The question should therefore be: why, despite an almost 100% vaccination rate in Texas, is there an outbreak of mumps? The answer clearly has to be that the MMR vaccination does not confer true protection against mumps.

If Channel 4 actually thought through my email to them, it is absolutely clear that whether Dr Wakefield is right or wrong, he cannot possibly be responsible for the mumps outbreak in Texas, yet that is precisely what was implied right at the end of the programme.

Do you imagine though, that there’ll be any similar attacks on Channel 4 that faced Maryanne Demasi and her Australian ABC Catalyst statin programme, despite the ABC programme being materially correct?

Mark
You have the saving that an icecube has not a chance in hell. Applies here but the gospel states quite clearly that vaccines work even when they are badly made (Merck in dock for MMR) or even when they have been inadequately tested,

If you’re an eastern European, you may prefer vodka. If you live in southern Europe, you may be most fond of wine, while those further north often drink beer. But how much alcohol is actually in a glass of vodka, wine or beer? This varies from country to country, and — until now — has also made it impossible to compare alcohol consumption in different European countries.

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) collaborated with colleagues from more than 40 European countries, and together they managed to crack the code of this puzzle. They developed a questionnaire tailored to the drinking habits in each geographical area by using cards that illustrated alcohol units, plus information on the types and quantities of alcohol sold in different parts of Europe. The survey responses were then converted to the number of grams of alcohol.

Now the survey results are finally available.

Portugal tops the charts

The survey is part of the European Social Survey, a large population study conducted every two years in around 30 European countries. A research group in NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science conducted the part of the survey that deals with people’s health and lifestyle, including their drinking habits.

The survey results show that alcohol consumption in European countries varies widely. Men consumed almost twice as many units of alcohol as women, and women in Israel and Central and Eastern Europe drink the least.

The Irish drink the most overall. Binge drinking is most widespread in Portugal, with Britain in second place.

In the Nordic countries, the Danes top the list for highest alcohol consumption overall, and weekend drinking binges are the most common among Norwegian men.

New understanding of causes

This is the seventh time the population study has been conducted, but it is the first time NTNU researchers have participated with their own questions. These questions are part of a larger module in the survey, which deals with social structure. Terje Andreas Eikemo, a professor of sociology at NTNU and leader of the research group CHAIN, led the work on health issues.

According to Eikemo, the cooperation between social science and medical research groups in this study has provided researchers with unique data on public health in Europe.

“Researchers in these fields haven’t worked together much. Now for the first time, we’ve been able to combine questions about living conditions, work, education and lifestyles with specific health incidents,” he says.

“In the past, we could say that drinking alcohol and smoking affect people’s health, for example. Now we can go farther back in the causal chain, and identify where measures should be taken,” explains Eikemo, who researches social inequalities in people’s health.

He says that the European Social Survey confirms what scientists have known about social status and alcohol use: people who are well off drink the most.

“Overall alcohol consumption is highest in the upper social strata, but binge drinking is most common in the lower social strata, he explains.

Extensive data collection

The data from the European Community Survey is publicly available and can be easily downloaded from the study’s own website. The purpose of the studies is to collect information on attitudes, values and behaviour patterns in the European countries, so that differences and changes can be tracked over time. One third of the questions vary in each survey round.

“We want to know more about how the various countries compare. When we compare ourselves to others, we can see what’s working — and countries can shape their health systems based on systems that are succeeding in other countries,” says Eikemo.

The survey is very comprehensive, with approximately 2000 personal interviews conducted in each of the participating countries. Each face-to-face interview lasts an hour and half.

The questions need to be designed in such a way that as many people as possible answer them, which can be a challenge. For example, how much you earn is a less sensitive subject in Norway than in some other countries.

Showcards show amounts

When it came to alcohol consumption, scientists also had to design questions that would be interpreted the same way in all the countries. That posed a challenge, since people in different countries have different drinking habits — and the types and quantities of alcohol sold and served vary considerably.

NTNU researchers solved this challenge by developing a number of “showcards” — cards that illustrate various types and amounts of alcohol. Survey participants could use the card illustrations when they reported how much they drink during a given period. The cards show, for example, what is considered a large and a small glass of wine, and the difference between a pint and half litre of beer and a bottle or can of beer.

“We developed different cards for each country. We were able to convert people’s responses about their drinking habits to the number of grams of alcohol,” Eikemo said.

The survey results have been presented to the EU health commissioner.

Story Source:

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In my various studies of atherosclerosis I’m always looking for the cause of the beginning of the lesions. I believe VCAM-1 is very important in the formation of these lesions. In one study Vitamin E and a very specific form of Vitamin E reduces VCAM-1 action. Cut and pastes from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15823271 delta-tocotrienol exerted a most profound inhibitory action on monocytic cell adherence when compared to alpha-tocopherol and alpha-, beta-, and gamma-tocotrienols. Tocotrienols accumulated in HAECs to levels approximately 25-95-fold greater than that of alpha-tocopherol. tocotrienols had a profound inhibitory effect on monocytic cell adherence to HAECs relative to alpha-tocopherol via inhibiting the VCAM-1 expression. From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC209304/ VCAM-1 is critical for the development of atherosclerotic lesions. As I am trying to prevent my own atherosclerosis, I supplement with delta-tocotrienol.

Physiol Res. 2004;53(1):77-82. “These results show that even a short-term exposure of endothelial cells (ECs) to high glucose concentration leads to their activation associated with increased expression of adhesion molecules such as ELAM-1, VCAM-1 and ICAM-1.”

Blood glucose could be the first step and relatively easy to modulate via diet. Endothelial cell expression of adhesion molecules could be interpreted as a cry for help.

Randel, thanks for bringing the paper up . . . it is superb . . . a lovely piece of work which nicely shows that vitamin E, in particular one member-type of the family, can assist in stopping monocytes from migrating under the epithelial layer, and saying how it does it.

It has got me thinking about how useful in a therapeutic sense the information is.
My understanding is that once there, monocytes change to macrophages, start gobbling up whatever they deem should not be there, and some of the more enthusiastic ones ending up as foam cells.

It occurs to me that the the monocytes are heading underneath the epithelium for some reason – Something is sending out inflammatory cytokine signals saying we need help, and they are responding. I wonder if the lesion formation is already underway when they are called and that they might not be the primary cause.

On the other hand if a lesion has formed, then preventing further monocytes from entering into the fray may reduce the inflammatory level and give time for the lesion to stabilise???

I recall that there were a couple of studies on smokers trying to see if taking vitamin E would be protective against lung cancer. Both found there was a some association between level of vitamin E intake the level of lung cancer . . . it was enough to get one of the studies stopped. In a flourish of scandalous speculation I wonder if making the job of the monocyte/macrophages that little bit harder (by making them less sticky) may not be that helpful.

I an afraid that the “nocebo” effect is a Big Pharma plus KOLs attempt to contrarversalize and distract attention from the problem.

It is a trick that was used by the tobacco companies in their astroturfing attempts to protect their sales of tobacco sales. It is now widely used by governments when trying to hide unfavourable leaked documents and by advertisers to protect the sales of their products.

The fact is that many adverse effects result in death which can not be described as a “nocebo” by any flight of imagination; for example BAYCOL a powerful statin was taken off the market because it killed ( Rhabdomyolysis) but as Dr. Graveline pointed out some years ago, this removal did reduce the incidence of this condition in the US. Again I find it difficult to believe someone who suggests that this is a “nocebo”.

The FDA itself has acknowledged that medical error now constitutes the third greatest largest cause of death in the US. Other reports such as Starbridge ( Starbridge B JAMA, July 26, 2000—Vol 284, No. 4http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=JAMA+2000+284%2C+4+483) who actually suggest that some 106,000 deaths resulted from pharmaceuticals. There are also reports of over 1 million cases of hospitalization each year in the US due to pharmaceuticals. Again these can hardly be described as “nocebos” ie figments of patients imagination.

Hardly surprising. As I understand it statins promote calcification (one of the ways they are said to stabalise plaque, isn’t it?). If they reduced calcification at the same time as promoting it that would be a very remarkable trick.

Oh yes, I was told I should go back on statins “to stabilise my plaque”. When I discovered this meant “calcify” I declined.

I already saw what calcifying the plaque did to my kitchen drain. Now I have a water softener. And on that subject, whenever people (including too many doctors) tell you that saturated fat goes into the blood and plasters itself over the arteries, suggest they put some heart-healthy oatmeal porridge down the kitchen sink. I guarantee this is an experiment they will try only once.

There appears to be some evidence that calcification of atherosclerotic lesions does stabilise them. I have heard Ivor Cummins, The Fat Emperor, talk in this way when talking of the importance of CAC scores in predicting heart disease.
In one paper “Site-specific intravascular ultrasound analysis of remodelling index and calcified necrosis patterns reveals novel blueprints for coronary plaque instability”. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25276614 FREE
. . . they talk of different patterns of calcification being more or less protective, and better predictors of CVD events.

Do statins stabilise plaque? Well some studies found there is some association found for increased plaque calcification and high dose statins. (Haven’t been into the details to find if the association was dose dependent) . . . But we know from a number of meta-studies that there is a modest improvement in CVD mortality but no benefit in overall mortality. Allocating some of those saved a heart attack because of stabilised plaque as opposed to those saved from putative reduction in systemic inflammation does not impress. The stats do not change. The chances are they will die of something else, like cancer.

I ask myself what was the motive for carrying out the research . . . . ?????

The research team reviewed more than 70 studies related to dietary approaches to regulating high blood pressure and found that the interaction of sodium and potassium is integral to maintaining healthy blood pressure levels. The ratio of sodium to potassium excreted as urine is an indication of how much of these minerals is consumed. When dietary potassium intake is elevated, the kidneys — composed of millions of small tubes working together — shift fluid to the area near the end of the tubes where potassium secretes into the urine. This shift reduces the amount of sodium and water that’s reabsorbed into the body. In this way, high potassium diet signals the body to reduce the amount of sodium that is retained. This circular pattern regulates the levels of both minerals in the body, which in turn helps lower blood pressure. Higher intake and excretion of potassium has also been found to slow the progression of kidney and heart disease.

In addition to analyzing data about the sodium-potassium ratio and its relationship to chronic disease, the research team explored strategies to educate the public about the importance of potassium for blood pressure control and heart health. Suggested policies include:

Requiring manufacturers to print potassium content on Nutrition Facts labels,
Promoting low-cost and easily available sources of potassium (milk, dried beans, potatoes, bananas) and
Encouraging families to cook healthy, plant-based meals together.
“Consuming [an abundance] of [potassium] is a good strategy since our physiology evolved and was optimized to deal with high [potassium] low [sodium] intake, often referred to a Paleolithic diet,” wrote the research team. In other words, the human body functions best with a balance of the two nutrients.

Gary,
I measured my 1/2 tsp of potassium bicarbonate at 3.5 grams (digital scale accurate to 0.1 grams). So you are correct, I’m only getting about 1.4 grams per 1/2 tsp. But 1 1/4 tsp would be more than 2 grams.

From the Dr. K article, it seems like the more the better. I can feel the physical effects of 1/2 tsp. I take the dogs out in the middle of the night (3 am) and when I come in with them I take my potassium and go back to bed. I can feel the potassium helping me fall back to sleep.

Philip Thackray. Thanks for the correction. I called this morning and ordered 2 1/2 lbs, along with the same amount of ascorbic acid. Is there a rhyme or reason for taking it in the middle of the night (I prefer sleeping all the way through, although at one time segmented sleep was considered normal)? What about taking it in divided doses? Having re-read Dr. Kendrick’s post from 2013, I’m sold. Now I understand why my GP has cautioned against potassium supplements and promoted potassium-rich foods, which are a good thing, and some of my favorite foods. But her caution is unnecessary.

Gary,
No reason for taking the K in the middle of the night. I’m a light sleeper and the dogs like to get outside at night (we live in the country) and do their dog things. I do take the K at night as it helps me get back to sleep. I’ve looked at trying to get say 4 to 8 grams of K per day from my diet but I just don’t eat enough K foods (see here: http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/nutrient-search ) to reach the levels Dr K is talking about. If I was more diligent, I’d take my 1/2 tsp twice a day.

All the pills sold as potassium supplements have minuscule amounts of K.
Phil

Phil: Thanks! Last evening I read a bunch of articles about potassium, but was unable to find Fotherby, et al., even on the Wayback Machine. But it seems the recommendation for dietary potassium is 4-5 times the amount of sodium, so if we eat the minimum healthful amount of sodium, 2,300 mg, we need 9,200-11,500 mg potassium. Hard to do that and not be a gorilla. Seven or eight avocados would do it, but one a day is my limit.

Philip Thackray,
The last blood test I had came up with 5 mmol/litre of Potassium. reading Dr K’s article that was kindly linked, I did not get a clear idea of what he recommends as a level. If you are supplementing with 2 grammes a day, what is your base load?
Thanks, as you will appreciate I don’t want to waste my money!

Mr Chris,
As you probably know your K levels are near the high end of the recommended range. In a healthy person is higher K levels from dietary sources better? I don’t know. Also, I have never tested my potassium levels so I’m just trying to make sure that my K intake is high as my low carb diet does not includes many of the high K food sources. The potassium supplement I linked to earlier is very cheap per dose.
Phil

Phil: My order arrived today. Seems to be a bit of confusion, not on my part, but on the part of Prescribed For Life. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the English system measures volume, while the metric system measures mass (my kitchen 1/4 tsp. says “1ml”). You measured 1/2 tsp. of potassium bicarbonate to be 3.5 g, which would yield 1.3-1.4g of potassium at 38-39%. Yet on the label it says: 1g (1/4 tsp). Below that: Potassium 380 mg. This is not correct, according to your gram scale. Thanks again for doing the proper calculations. I also ordered ascorbic acid, and was alarmed to see it was sourced from China. Back it goes.

Philip
Thank you,
My GP checks out what he calls electrolyte levels once a year. Also, these are plasma levels, which I have been told are likely to be the same as intra-cellular levels.
Lastly, how were the “norms” established?
So, in conclusion, I don’t think supplementation will do me any harm.

Mr. Chris: I think the norms were established simply by looking at a large amount of data to find a normal distribution in the population. Since I had been taking BP drugs, my GP tested me yearly, too. The range seems to be 3.5-5.3mEq/L. Mine is 4.5-4.7. I took my first dose of potassium bicarbonate this morning, stirred into my beet kvass (which has lots of sodium). Made it taste strange, but not unpleasant. 1/4 tsp (3.5g, 600-700mg K) is equivalent to about a half an avocado, less than a potato, so how could it be remotely harmful? After I see the sawbones in a couple of weeks I’ll probably up the dose to 1/2 tsp.

jane: That is correct advice, as far as I understand it. From what I’ve read, contra-indications to potassium supplements are: if you are taking potassium-sparing drugs (such as ACE inhibitors), or have any kidney-function problems. I take no drugs, and my kidneys function well, so I’m not concerned. Read Dr. Kendrick’s 2013 Potassium post, and search “Potassium Supplements” and you will have lots of information.

Gary,
I checked my digital scale with a 500 gram reference weight that I have here. My scale measured within +/- 0.2 %. I zeroed out the scale and read between 3.1 and 3.5 grams for a 1/2 teaspoon amount of potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) depending upon how you level the scoop. I’m using the Prescribed For Life powder. That is what I know.
The anomalies:
1) Kitchen utensils are not calibrated.
2) Google says the density of KHCO3 is 2.17 grams/cm^3 which means that 2.5 ml (water scale where 1 ml = 1 cm^3) should weigh 5.425 grams. ??? ( does this density not account for for the space between particles in a powder??)
3) The label information you quoted. My 1 pound Prescription For Life package label does not have similar label information.
There is some confusion here.
Phil

Phil: Thanks for the further clarification. Yes, confusion reigns, but I think we can add supplements to the list of “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” To use it we must measure it in some way, and kitchen utensils, though not calibrated, are close enough. The gram scale does not lie, if properly calibrated, and I’m satisfied that yours is. I calculate that my 1/4 tsp gives me 600-700mg of K, about the same as 1/2 avocado.

Errett
Once again thanks for your contribution. I suspect that this is an item that we should all factor in to our lives, rather than some of the garbage presented in the medical literature (eg the recent paper on red meat. Some weird results such as more meat causing more diabetes than more carbs)

There used to be a product called “Slow K release” Tried BOOTS but failed to find any.

Is the medical profession casting the net wider, just had a conversation with my daughter who has been for a check up at her surgery,BP, talk about smoking, weight control.
I am so angry at her and her doctors surgery. Bloods were taken for cholesterol. She is 45 yrs old, slim, active, upbeat. Have my children not learned anything from this woman their mother, which is to always disobey, unless a good reason not to.

Randall
My own researching suggests that hyperinsulineamia is certainly involved as a factor in death. As Dr Robert Kraft MD MS FCAP, in his book Diabetes Epidemic & You points out. However importantly he shows that hyperisulinaemia is the first sign of diabetes (early diabetes) while hyperglycaemia is late stage diabetes. I suspect this is because the early method for measuring blood insulin level was by radioimmunoassay. Now as then and now, the regulations for setting up a lab dealing with radio isotopes was both difficult and costly; something most hospitals would have not wanted at that time.
Hence a alternate method involving the measuring hyperglycaemia and its depletion rate and HbA1c. It sort of worked but left diagnosis to what Kraft called “late diabetes”
Kraft’s work is based on over 14,000 individual tests – a massive number – and his finding that early diagnosis in this way, gave a much better chance of full recovery with an appropriate treatment protocol than the diagnosis of diabetes by the much older but conventional procedure.
As always early diagnosis makes possible a better chance of full recovery.

A question: under current NHS procedures and protocols what is the full recovery efficacy rate?

Having finally had a chance to follow this link up it brings me back to Dr. Robert Kraft, his book (Diabetes and you) and his findings that hyperinsulinaemia is the provides the earliest diagnosis for diabetes which in turn leads to HOMA-IR and the published program https://www.dtu.ox.ac.uk/homacalculator/ (can be downloaded but useless without a fasting blood insulin level £39 at medicheks.com. – NHS could probably do it for £20)
But the NHS is wedded to 40+ year old inadequate diagnostic system.

Should have left it at “LDLc is a useless biomarker.” My LDLc is in 250mg/dL range , doc suggests to consider starting statins. Will request fasting insulin test at next checkup. In meantime eat LCHF and not worry about “bad cholesterol”.

DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone) starts to decline around the age of 30—-it is produced mainly in the adrenal glands—-I wonder if the mechanism the body uses to maintain tight junctions in the brain’s BBB (blood brain barrier) are used generally throughout our vascular system—-

A simple treatment for Leaky BBB – avoid grains. Otherwise wait for a pill from Big Pharma.
“Gluten has long been accepted as a cause of gastrointestinal inflammation in celiac disease. However, clinicians are increasingly documenting how gluten can induce body-wide inflammation in individuals without celiac disease and may have an effect on the blood-brain barrier.
Gliadin (a component of gluten) can free itself when gluten is digested and stimulate a receptor on enterocytes which then leads to the transcription of zonulin. After transcription, the zonulin becomes extracellular and binds to its receptor, which leads to the disassembly of the tight junction between enterocytes.”

” developing new strategies for the prevention or treatment of neurological disorders associated with BBB defects” First step is to name the new disease and then develop expensive drugs to reap maximum benefit. HypoDHEAosis causes BBBiis and can lead to Alzheimer’s and dementia. This could be bigger than the war on bad cholesterol. With statins eliminating heart disease we are now faced with cancer or dementia as the end point. The new drug will leave cancer as the next problem to be solved. Focusing on cancer as a metabolic problem is a step in the right direction.

JDPatten: That blogpost reads like a pharma-fueled hit piece against advocates for protecting children from the risks of vaccines. Not all of them have a medical degree, or any type of degree or scientific training. Consider the commenters here. How many have medical or scientific training? Not many. But all of them have the capacity to use their brain, do research, and understand complex physiological and biochemical questions. Vaccine injuries are very real, and all-too common, and they don’t discriminate by the degree of education of the parent. They can be devastating, but the government, both in the UK and U.S. basically throws these families under the bus. He is also likely unaware that Marcia Angell, Richard Horton, and Fiona Godlee, all medical journal editors, have all publicly stated that much of the “science” they publish is bogus (like the newest cholesterol-lowering drugs!).

Great comment.
About having science degrees, I once worked for a large chemical company. Someone came to us and propsed a revolutionary method of making a product, that reduced the labout and raw material cost of a product. We sat round and debated following up. First remark/question ” there is no trace of this guy having a Ph.D.p
Second point, any one who reads Marcia Angells book, which I am doing for the second time, will agree that a lot of pharma research is bogus.

All I’m saying is check your sources. It might be that you’re tempted to use different standards if you’re forwarding a work that supports your bias.
We ALL have biases.
Does the corroborating evidence OR the negating evidence pass the “likely, not likely, or improbable” test according to uniform standards?
Ya gotta have some basic standards.

JDPatten: That’s just the problem with the CDC. They have no standards. Because they function as the marketing branch of the vaccine industry. There are five (out of the fourteen they trot out) studies that the IOM considers actual science in the CDC’s exoneration of thimerosal. Yet they are all population studies. Why not toxicological studies? RCT’s? Population studies are child’s play to manipulate to get the result you want. The Vaerstraten study data was manipulated seven times to reduce the signal to the point of barely showing statistical significance (read the Simpsonwood transcript: autismhelpforyou.com; also read Thimerosal, Let the Science Speak-this is real science) . Science is thoroughly corrupted today by the vast and overpowering influence of Pharma. And it is seriously damaging our families and our future, one child at a time.

How does one determine what’s “likely, not likely or improbable”? For most of the topics discussed, including the ones on here, most people simply don’t have enough knowledge to make that determination. Thus, most of us most of the time choose what hypothesis we choose to believe in based on our own limited experience and what we think is common sense. There is very little we truly know for sure before we decide what we think the truth is.

The issue as I see it – I presume that many of us (myself included) would not double check Dr Kendrick’s arguments after reading Doctoring Data. We would trust his words based on…common sense and personal experience, I suppose. In my case on years of seeing the havoc polypharmacy is wrecking on the patients I treat and on two generations on MDs with whom I grew up and who all advised me against using drugs whenever possible. However, I realize that if I want to be a scientist, I would have to go back to all the references Dr Kendrick cites and study them myself. “Nullius in Verba” and all that…

In this I am not that much different from an average Joe who goes to a doctor and unquestionably accepts whatever he’s given…

A lesser thought through problem with vaccines – where we used to live they called in all the old folks for their flu vaccines in huge lots.

If you survived all the reversing Nissan Micras in the parking lot, you got to sit for an hour or so in a room entirely full of other old and often ill people. So even if the vaccine did protect you against the flu, the chances were high that you would contract some other infection.

Same for one of the local hospitals – they would give everyone the same appointment time and you then got to sit around sometimes for hours in a building entirely full of ill people. I used to have to monitor mother carefully for several days afterwards to see what she had picked up this time.

This led me to suspect that Infection Control Managers came from the same training school as dieticians.

I think the vaccine scandal is far more insiduous than the statin one. At least statins are generally given to an older population who can (hopefully) detect and reverse the adverse effects by stopping the drug. How can you possibly reverse the adverse effects of an injected vaccine, particularly when the “patient” is only a few weeks / months old?

I was familiar with the reported at least some of the dangers and associations of vaccines but had never seen all such data in one place. Truly frightening on a population wide level with who knows what epigenetic consequences.

Mark Johnson: And this is why the majority of cases awarded compensation in vaccine court in recent years are adults, mainly for Guillan Barré from the flu shot. Adults can describe what is happening to them, clearly see the connection to getting the shot, and are more likely than young parents to investigate and learn about the compensation system (of which most Americans are ignorant). We are witnessing a vast medical experiment, without informed consent, on the entire population of the world.

I love this:
Conclusions
Although the cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitor evacetrapib had favorable effects on established lipid biomarkers, treatment with evacetrapib did not result in a lower rate of cardiovascular events than placebo among patients with high-risk vascular disease

Curious to know what was the quality of the HDL under Evacetrapib treatment. Was it small dense HDL?
Same question for LDL quality under statin treatment. More small dense LDL particles?
Anything small dense is not good.

So despite funding by Eli Lilly and Steven Nissen’s involvement they still failed to get the expected outcome. Maybe they should have employed Professor Lord Sir Rory Collins and Rory Collins Lite, er I mean Peter Sever. These things seriously look like duds – and not only that, they poke a huge hole through the Cholesterol Hypothesis.

Philip
The trouble with selenium in food sources is that all these data depend on the soil content on which the animals are raised or the food grown. My particular interest was with animals and the means with which the deficiencies are corrected. In humans the use of statins can and does influence the formation of the seleno-proteins.

Mike,
Here is a good map, selenium + other elements by US counties: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geochem/doc/averages/se/usa.html . For US residents, move your mouse over the map and click on your region then click on your county.
I’m in Butler County, PA . Mid to high range selenium.
I followed Dr. Graveline closely until his death.
Phil

Mike,
I note your interest in animals and selenium deficiencies. For eggs we raise our own poultry (chickens, ducks and guinea hens) and pork from our pigs. All the animals free range on a many acre pasture. Given the soil conditions here do you think they have a sufficient source of selenium?
Phil

Selenium in the UK . . .
There is survey by the UK soil observatory: http://www.ukso.org/nsi/Selenium.html
Bit of an eye raiser . . . All the Romney Marsh lamb that I love to eat might not be as excellent as I thought . . . The wooly chaps live/feed in the lowest of the low blue blue zones . . . oh dear. . . . just have to eat one more brazil nut.

Phil
The only solution to your question is to get your soil analysed. Your local agricultural officer (UK and Ireland) should be able to arrange that. A common test for sheep and cattle in Ireland is the GPX (a seleno-protein) while the New Zealand people prefer a test of blood selenium level. A good source of agricultural information is https://www.teagasc.ie/search/?q=selenium
my old employers
I personally take a supplement a couple of times a week “just in case”.

Vegetables are low in selenium but also play a big role. My concern is with the growing trend in hydroponically grown vegetables now being sold in grocery stores. A hydroponic genetically modified tomato, pepper etc. is the future.

Andy S: Yes, it seems to be a growing trend here among the “greenies.” I can’t for the life of me understand how food not grown in soil (or the sea) could possibly be healthful. They most certainly don’t provide all the necessary minerals in their growing medium, and as Diana taught us, the symbiotic relationship between fungi and roots is crucial for the uptake of those minerals. Nor can hydroponics give any benefit at all to soils, which are the basis of our food system. What would do us all a world of good would be to restore the world’s grasslands. The world has much more acreage of grassland than cropland, but much of it is degraded. The proper raising of animals for food would not only restore them, would would improve fertility, water infiltration, and local climate, as well as providing high-quality protein for a world lacking in it. The Allen Savory Institute is doing wonderful work in this area.

Wow, now that’s an interesting map. I was told some time ago that selenium levels were high here (Suffolk, and some of my food comes from over the border in Norfolk) because of the glaciation which brought soil (and some rocks) from much further north and deposited a layer of clay over the previous chalk. So I also assumed it was not a nutrient of concern here.

Would be interesting to see an overlaid map of thyroid problems, which have a regional variation.

Some may argue that vaccines are completely benign and protect against disease.
Others may say that the risk of vaccines causing harm is real but affect so few that the risk on a population level is worth taking bearing in mind that vaccines protect all those vaccinated against disease.

But yet, the CDC states the following:

Across the nation, most mumps cases are occurring among people who have been vaccinated, according to the CDC, and these outbreaks are not due to low vaccination rates. For example, in Texas, 97.6% of kindergarten-age children have received two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, Van Deusen said, while 98.7% of seventh-graders have.

So the real question should be, if vaccines don’t confer the protection claimed of them and the adjuvants included in their formulation certainly have a demonstrated mechanism of causing harm, why vaccinate?

Isn’t this very similar to lipid lowering drugs? The drugs do what they are claimed to do (lower blood lipids) but don’t affect disease or disease outcomes. So why take the drugs?

Why vaccinate? Why take statins? Aren’t the two questions very similar in terms of their answers / conclusions?

Mark Johnson: Yes, very similar indeed. However, biologicals (vaccines) are held to a lower standard than pharmaceuticals. They are short-term safety tested, but never against an inert placebo. The “placebo” is always the vaccine minus the antigen or a different vaccine. Nor have they ever been tested in combination (sometimes eight or more at the same time), as they are routinely administered. Merck is currently being sued by two of its (former) mumps vaccine researchers under the false claims act. They claim the vaccine’s efficacy is far lower than they claim and the U.S. government demands. This is the Jeryl Lynn strain, taken from a cheek swab of the daughter of Maurice Hilleman, former chairman of Merck. It appears the mumps virus has evolved since then, and this explains the outbreaks in fully-vaccinated populations (something similar apparently has happened with measles, too, according to Gregory A. Poland, M.D., a prominent vaccine researcher and promoter). There are almost no studies comparing health outcomes of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Congress refuses to authorize them. These would be easy to do, retrospectively. The CDC has a huge archive of data, covering millions of children followed for decades, called the Vaccine Safety Datalink. They refuse to allow outside researchers access to it. This may change when we have a new CDC director. I’ve been told this will be coming, that it will be a big surprise, and that Pharma will not be happy about it.

Gary Ogden
It is an unfortunate fact of life that the CDC, NIH and the FDA all have a revolving door arrangement with Big Pharma which does not help. Also an ex-Director of the CDC (Gerbering????) is now vice president vaccines at Merck. This all part of the Washington “swamp”

mikecawdery: Yes, and the swamp is kept humming along by the deep state, established during the Truman administration (CIA 1947, NSA 1952), ostensibly to protect us from the Soviet menace, but also to protect the interests of wealth (Rockefeller family and others). The CDC knows perfectly well that vaccines cause autism. So are they just evil people? Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes interviewed the last surviving Nuremburg prosecutor. He’s 97, and sharp as a tack. He said these criminals were otherwise decent people, but war is what made them animals. I would amend that to say that when vast wealth is involved, the same is true, the moral compass turns quiet The entire American establishment is now squashing those who tell the truth about vaccines like so many bugs. It takes guts, and a reliable source of income to stand up to this onslaught. This is why they are trying to destroy Trump; not because he’s so awful in so many ways, which he is; they don’t really care about that. It’s because he threatens the Pharma gravy train. If the new CDC administrator opens the can of worms, it will be ugly, it will shake the foundations of the nation, but all will benefit. A South African-style truth and reconciliation commission would be in order. The U.S. no longer seems interested in holding high public or private officials accountable under the law.

Christopher Murray et al. Global, Regional, and National Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases for 10 Causes, 1990 to 2015. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2017.04.052

Errett thanks for the the reference
Trouble is that it is behind a pay wall and, what amused me was that the list of authors was longer than the abstract so I did not bother to check the author information

Dr Kendrick
This needs to be said.
Over the years of your many articles, you have guided many of us to a new understanding of the issues that you have raised. You have encouraged inquiries that have lead to further revelations being shared on this web site. You have excelled as a leader of these inquiries for which we all must be profoundly grateful; a truly great contribution to patient therapy and care.

Personally, you have restored my respect for the medical profession which has been sorely tried by the failures of the medical establishment, no doubt promoted by Big Pharma’s greed

Yes! I have learnt so much from Dr Kendrick and all of you who comment – and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Thank you, Dr Kendrick for all your time and effort in writing your blogs – they are greatly appreciated.

To provide some balance to the vaccination debate, wouldn’t proponents of vaccination cite the following as proof that it does work:

Smallpox is a devastating disease caused by the variola virus. In 1980, following an historic global campaign of surveillance and vaccination, the World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated – the only infectious disease to achieve this distinction.

Yes some vaccines DO work. Smallpox was based on the practical observation (long before RCTs) that those exposed to cowpox were “protected” from smallpox.

Most animal vaccines seem to work, both antiviral and anti-bacterial (eg the clostridial vaccines) ones. But, and its a big but, these vaccines are tested in animals challenged with an infective dose of the organism. This simply does not happen in humans where the vaccine is tested by the testing of an antibody response; whether the antibody is a true immunebody is a matter of conjecture.

Mark Johnson: They generally do cite smallpox first, and polio second. The first crumbles under the weight of historical evidence (See “Dissolving Illusions” for the history of smallpox vaccination), and the second was a scare whipped up by the public health authorities (the Rockefeller Institute [now called Rockefeller University] had been working on a polio vaccine since the early twentieth century). But infantile paralysis outbreaks were relatively rare, and always associated with a toxic environmental exposure; until the 1950’s, it was arsenical herbicides and pesticides, and later DDT. Both are central nervous system paralytics (see the above, especially the section about the Michigan Polio Epidemic of 1958, the first in which serological testing was done. Some, but not all, had poliovirus, some had other viruses, and in some no virus at all was detected. Also see the late, great Dan Olmsted’s excellent two polio series on Age of Autism. The idea that humans are capable of eliminating a microbe is far more absurd than the claim that statin drugs save lives. What scientist would make that claim? Quarantine can effectively stop transmission, but pathogens evolve, as do all other life forms, and it is biologically plausible for them to lose pathogenicity by a variety of mechanisms, or for them to become extinct. As an example, scarlet fever went away (except in parts of Asia and elsewhere), without any vaccine. WHO is a political, not a medical organization.

Dr. Göran Sjöberg: Some things to rejoice about: The Swedish Parliament just resoundingly reaffirmed the right of choice in regard to vaccination. The Earth is getting greener with the higher CO2 concentration. California has a huge snowpack (195% of average) to fill up the reservoirs and get us through the dry months. Dr. Kendrick’s gifts to us all. The vitamin D we’re now all getting. CDC will soon have a new head-only one finger needs be removed from the dike for the filth to flow out. The tide seems to be turning in the world of nutritional nonsense. The internet has essentially opened the world’s libraries and news sources to all for a fairly modest cost. Neighbors, friends, and family. The kindness of strangers. Waking up every morning to a new day (always my favorite moment).

There’s now a large grassroots movement away from dogma, driven by science, and a small but increasing number of clueful doctors, researchers and yes even dieticians.

Only a decade or so back, there was little research into other than low fat diets because it was routinely blocked by Ethics Committees and what was done often failed to be published. Hence why the likes of Richard Feinman, Eric Westman, Stephen Phinney, Jeff Volek et al. started the open access journal “Nutrition And Metabolism”.

Now all these authors and perhaps hundreds more are routinely published in mainstream journals and reported on by the likes of Malcolm, Ted Naiman, Aseem Malhotra and other doctors – and put into practice.

At the same time the likes of David Katz, Kevin Hall and a bunch of vegans and intellectual morons are desperately trying to refocus our minds back onto the dogma. Did you see ANYTHING in the mainstream media about the Tim Noakes trial? Do you see much dietary science reported in the Guardian if it doesn’t support the vegan low fat status quo?

Compare and contrast with the Blogosphere and Twitter. Yes there is lunacy there, but also a large number of people pointing to it and yelling. Lots of truth filters through, and there is feedback from people who have tried things which succeeded, or failed: when there are only one or two perhaps dismissing the results as “anecdotes” is plausible, but when the anecdotes run into the thousands they look a whole lot like data. Likewise when the “data” is bought and paid for yet fails in the Real World, it looks a whole lot like bovine excreta.

I know you’ve broached the subject in the past and clearly there is lots of interest in the subject so could you give your usual treatment to the vaccine issue? I appreciate this is a subject perhaps even more fraught with danger than angering the statin gods but I suspect you’re quite adept at walking tightropes by now! 😉

I don’t know about general hope but general advice I’d suggest would be: unless it’s an acute medical emergency stay away from doctors!

I had a call from my doctor’s surgery last week calling me in for a blood pressure test and concern that they hadn’t seen me in years and years. (I’d ignored their letter last year). I told them my blood pressure was fine (I do check it from time to time at home – around 110-120 / 70-80) and that they should devote their no doubt limited resources to those who need them. They were a bit taken aback. I sort of felt sorry for the girl phoning when she said, “she’d make a note”. Why do they contact the well to make them the worried well who then become the no doubt medicated worried well and then the likely still worried but now sick from adverse drug effects? Or is it all for just another tick in the QOF box?

The poster who supplied the independent Nutrition journal brought out to hopefully offer influence free articles thankfully put me on to NLR and its extra predictive capacity for heart disease. Phoned up Blue Horizon in UK and they say they dont offer it (really !!), here in Portugal you can get it for 6 euros with an apology that you will have to do the division yourself to get the ratio. Some info’ on NLR below

Dr Kendrick, I’m confused.
“During the non-blinded non-randomised phase, muscle-related AEs (adverse events) were reported at a significantly higher rate by participants taking statins than by those who were not (161 [1·26% per annum] vs 124 [1·00% per annum]; 1·41 [1·10–1·79]; p=0·006).’

To translate 161 people (out of more than six thousand) complained of muscle pain whilst taking the statin, and 124 people taking a placebo complained of muscle pain. In total 37 more people complained of muscle pain on the statin. This is not, what I would call, a lot. It was an absolute increase, in the risk of reporting adverse effects, of 0.26%.”
If my understanding is correct the 124 people were not taking a placebo. Everything in my bones tells me I’m wrong. So, put me out of my misery.

Dr Kendrick cannot provide individual patient advice over the Internet. UK General Medical Council regulations are clear that to do so would be a breach of medical standards that could result in disciplinary proceedings.

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